David Mundell: I share the pleasure of the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) at seeing so many Members present on the Opposition Benches below the gangway. I have regular meetings with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and colleagues and have discussed the benefits of the withdrawal agreement and political deceleration for Scotland and the whole of the UK.

Patrick Grady: Does he accept that no form of Brexit is better for Scotland than our current deal, which is membership? On that basis, will he take the opportunity now to rule out a no-deal, cliff-edge Brexit by extending article 50?

Lesley Laird: On the 12 October 2016, when questioned about the sweetheart deal that the UK Government struck with Nissan, the Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box and told the House that whatever support is put in place for businesses in the south of England
“will apply to businesses in Scotland.”—[Official Report, 12 October 2016; Vol. 615, c. 287.]
In light of the news that Nissan was offered a financial package worth up to £80 million to ensure that it would not be adversely affected by Brexit, can he detail the financial support that he has made available to Scottish businesses to ensure that, like Nissan, they are not adversely affected by Brexit?

Stuart McDonald: Last week the National Farmers Union Scotland told the Bill Committee that free movement works and should continue, that the Government’s seasonal workers pilot was not nearly enough, and that post-Brexit immigration proposals do not make sense and are “very obstructive”. Given that the UK-wide system is not working for Scotland’s farmers, will the Secretary of State argue for different immigration rules to apply in Scotland?

Derek Thomas: In both Scotland and Cornwall many low paid but skilled jobs are provided by immigrants to the UK. What assurance can the Secretary of State give that that will continue after Brexit?

Stewart McDonald: Does the Financial Secretary agree with me that the First Minister has an important role to play in bringing foreign investment to Scotland, and that any criticisms, including those from his own colleagues in Holyrood, border on the provincial to the ridiculous, unless of course they believe that the office of First Minister is a stay-at-home job?

Stephen Doughty: May I add my tribute to the words of the Prime Minister for my former constituency neighbour, friend and Welsh Labour colleague, Paul Flynn? He was a remarkable man. He will go down as one of the great parliamentarians of the past 40 years and was an inspiration to many of us. He once gave me a copy of that book when I was a teenager, so he must have seen something in me, Mr Speaker. I am rebellious, although maybe not quite as rebellious as him. He was a great man and he will be missed by all of us.
In the midst of political crisis it is ever more important that we put our country first. With thousands of jobs at risk and our international reputation in question, will the Prime Minister now stop playing Russian roulette, rule out no deal, and put a deal back to the British people so they can have the final say?

Jeremy Corbyn: May I start, Mr Speaker, by joining what you said on Monday in paying tribute to my friend and yours, Paul Flynn? He served in this House for over 30 years as the Member for Newport West. He was courageous, he was warm, he was witty. As the Prime Minister pointed out, he served briefly on the shadow Front Bench. When he came to his first shadow Cabinet meeting, he welcomed my
“diversity project to promote octogenarians”
to the shadow Cabinet. His book on how to become an MP is absolutely a must-read. He was respected all across the House and I think we are all going to miss his contributions, his wit and his wisdom. Our deepest  condolences to his wife Sam and all his family, and to his wider family across Newport and Wales. He was a truly wonderful man and a great and dear friend.
I also hope that the House will join me in paying tribute to Baroness Falkender, who died earlier this month, and send our condolences to her friends and family. When Marcia served with distinction as political secretary to Harold Wilson, she was subjected to a long campaign of misogynistic smear and innuendo. She suffered a great deal as a result, and we should remember the great work that she did as political secretary to Harold Wilson.
The Prime Minister just responded to a question on antisemitism. I simply say this: antisemitism has no place whatsoever in any of our political parties, in our life, in our society—[Interruption.]

Theresa May: The right hon. Gentleman points out that, as I just said in my response to his question—he could have listened to that answer, but I am happy to repeat it—there are a number of ways in which it is possible to address the issue that has been raised by this House of Commons. Work is being undertaken on those various issues. On the alternative arrangements, for example, the Commission has raised questions, particularly about the extent to which derogation from European Union law would be necessary to put those in place, and there is concern about being able to achieve that if we are going to leave in time. Nevertheless, we have agreed that a workstream will go forward on those matters. We are also exploring the other issues, but the point is a very simple one. It is not just a question of saying to the European Union, “Actually, this is just the one thing.” It is a question of sitting down with the European Union and finding a solution that is going to deliver for the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland, that is going to ensure that we deal with the concern that has been raised here in this House of Commons, and that is going to enable a deal to be brought back to this House of Commons that it can support so that we leave on 29 March with a deal.

Jeremy Corbyn: The Prime Minister does not seem very interested in listening to those companies and industry bodies that are saying they need a customs union. When she talks about jobs, will she also talk about those doing two or three jobs to make ends meet, those on zero-hours contracts, those so low paid they have to access food banks just to survive, and those suffering from in-work poverty—on her watch, under her Government.
Last year, investment in the car industry halved. Brexit uncertainty is already costing investment, and where investment is cut today, jobs are cut tomorrow. That uncertainty would not end even if the Prime Minister’s rejected deal somehow got through, because it promises only the certainty of a “spectrum” of possible outcomes. Will she see sense and offer business and workers the certainty of a customs union that could protect jobs and industry in this country?

Ian Blackford: May I associate myself with the remarks of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on the sad death of Paul Flynn? He will be missed by many, and thoughts and prayers are with Sam and his family. He was a unique and truly gifted parliamentarian. It was a pleasure to serve on a Committee with him and it was a pleasure to have known him.
Westminster is broken. We are in the middle of a constitutional crisis and on the brink of a Brexit disaster, and yet this place is at war with itself. The Tories and the Labour party are imploding. Scotland deserves better. We need a way out. Time is running out. Will this House get to vote on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal next week, and if not, when?

Theresa May: Obviously we are in discussions with the European Union and will bring a vote back when it is possible to bring a deal back that deals with the issue that the House of Commons has raised. We have listened to the House of Commons. We are working on the views of the House with the European Union, and we will bring a vote back when it is the right time to do so.

Theresa May: It is an important message for us to give that we are very clear that we will take action against those who are involved in terrorism. Obviously each Home Secretary deals with the question of deprivation on a number of occasions; I dealt with deprivation cases myself, and there is a very clear set of criteria on which the Home Secretary considers that matter. But the overall point my hon. Friend makes is absolutely right: how important it is for this Government and this country to make it very clear that we will take action against those who are involved in terrorism.

Tonia Antoniazzi: Alongside the tributes paid to our late dear colleague, Paul Flynn, I hope that the Prime Minister will join me in recognising his dogged determination in his fight for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis. Since November, however, the rescheduling of medicinal cannabis has not changed anything. Not a single new NHS prescription has been issued, and this is causing the families of children with epilepsy, in particular, unbearable suffering. It is evident that someone, somewhere, is blocking this. Did the Government mean to block this life-changing medicine for those children? If not, what will they do about it?

Theresa May: I agree with my hon. Friend. As she says, Anne Meadows, a long-serving Labour councillor on Brighton and Hove City Council, has today chosen  to leave Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party and join the Conservatives, due to the bullying and antisemitism that she has received from Momentum and the hard left. That is the harsh reality that decent, moderate Labour councillors are having to face every, day due to Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to stand up to bullying and racism in his party. We welcome Councillor Meadows into the Conservative party with open arms, and I am sure that she will be an excellent Conservative councillor.

Ian Blackford: With respect to the Minister, this was of course a question to the Prime Minister, and it is the Prime Minister who should be answering. This is a matter of the utmost importance, because this House is going to be asked to vote on the Prime Minister’s deal. The specific question I asked was about the economic analysis that the Government have done on their deal. It is quite clear from the Minister’s answer that the Government have done no analysis on this deal. On arguably the most important matter that this House has voted on since the second world war, we do not have an economic impact assessment from the Government. It is, once again, this Conservative Government treating this House and the United Kingdom with contempt. It is a disgrace that the Government have continued to duck and dive in respect of their responsibilities.
Economists are clear: the Prime Minister’s deal is set to hit GDP, the public finances and living standards. Analysis published by the London School of Economics estimates that
“the Brexit deal could reduce UK GDP per capita by between 1.9% and 5.5% in ten years’ time, compared to remaining in the EU.”
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has warned that
“if the government’s proposed Brexit deal is implemented, then GDP in the longer term will be around 4 per cent lower than it would have been had the UK stayed in the EU.”
Bank of England analysis states the UK Government’s deal will raise unemployment by 4% and inflation by 2%. The Prime Minister is running feart of the truth, with her Government refusing to admit the damage that her deal will do.
The Government cannot claim that their November document covers their deal. Let us look at the facts. Page 17 of the Treasury analysis looks at the modelled average free trade agreement and states:
“As such, it does not seek to define or model a bespoke agreement.”
But the Prime Minister tells us she has a bespoke deal. The Treasury analysis continues:
“This scenario is not indicative of government policy, as it would not meet UK objectives including avoiding a hard border”
in Northern Ireland.
There we have it in black and white: the Treasury analysis conducted last year does not account for the Prime Minister’s deal. So, I say to the Government, where is the analysis? MPs continue to be expected to vote on the proposed deal without the Government explaining the economic consequences. That is the height of irresponsibility.
The deal would be a disaster for Scotland, taking us out of the EU single market and customs union. We know that up to 100,000 jobs in Scotland are under threat. The Government are sticking their head in the sand. Everyone knows this Government are bringing our economy to its knees. We cannot allow the Tories to drive us off the cliff edge.
No Government can be allowed to bring forward a vote on such a significant matter without an economic assessment. It must be published. Shame on the Prime Minister if she fails to protect our economy, shame on those on the Government Benches if they allow businesses to collapse and jobs to be lost, and shame on any MP, including the Leader of the Opposition, if they march through the Lobby to deliver a deal that secures economic catastrophe.
No Member should believe that there is a binary choice; there is not. This is not a choice of no deal or this deal. Both are bad. Both will plunge our economy into an unmitigated disaster.

Mel Stride: I thank the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) for his vociferous oration, but vociferous orations are no substitute for the facts. Let me remind him of some of the facts in respect of the points he made. He says that we have made no analysis of the impact of these arrangements on the United Kingdom economy, and that is simply not the case. The information we have come forward with is a robust analysis of the future outcomes of the four different scenarios that we consider in that analysis. He levels the charge that we are in some way treating the United Kingdom with contempt, and that is certainly not the case. The House has been very deeply preoccupied with matters of Brexit and the nature of how we might exit the European Union, and the Prime Minister has set out that there will be further debate this time next week to be followed, in the event that we do not pass a meaningful vote, with another amendable motion to be considered by the House.
The right hon. Gentleman also says that the deal, as he terms it, would have a negative impact on the UK economy. The analysis clearly shows that under every single scenario it analyses it is better to have this deal than no deal or any of the alternatives. Finally, he decried the fact that we had not put forward a bespoke deal for analysis within our analysis, and that illustrates his lack of understanding of what the future political declaration is all about, which is a range of possible outcomes. That is entirely what the analysis models.

Mel Stride: My right hon. Friend asks a specific, interesting question, which prompts many other questions as to exactly the form of the model that he is postulating. The important thing, when it comes to access to our markets in future, is that we have a tariff policy that protects domestic producers in our economy where they require protection, and ensures that our trade remedy regime is robust, so that we can prevent the dumping of products into the UK market, and also is sufficiently liberalised such that the cost savings that would accrue from liberalised tariffs are there for the benefit both of consumers and those who use those products in their production processes within the UK market.

Helen Goodman: I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) is not in her place to ask this question herself. Last week she withdrew her amendment asking the Government to publish their papers on the impact of no deal. Will the Government still hold to their promise, even though she has defected from the Tory party?

Meg Hillier: In response to the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee, the Minister said that it would be reckless of the Government not to plan for no deal. However, the detailed work of the Public Accounts Committee has clearly shown that the Government are not prepared for no deal, and are woefully prepared for a deal. Would not the responsible thing be to delay any exit or extend the transition period and take stock, and make sure that the D-minus-37 uncertainty that is hanging over our country is resolved? It is too late just to pass the deal—uncertainty is now built in.

Marsha de Cordova: It is no secret that the Government’s deal will hit people’s livelihoods and jobs, along with economic growth. All credible economic analysis says that a no-deal Brexit would have a devastating effect. With just 37 days to go, does the Minister agree that we need to get serious, and that we need to consider extending article 50?

Edward Davey: I thank the Home Secretary for his reply. On the legal grounds to remove citizenship because it would be
“conducive to the public good”,
can he set out the criteria he must use to make such judgments on the public good?
As the Home Secretary knows, the law prevents him from making someone who is British by birth stateless. In November, the Home Secretary lost a case before the  Special Immigration Appeals Commission on a similar decision made by his predecessor to strip two terror suspects of their British citizenship. Then, as now, the Home Office contended that the two had Bangladeshi citizenship by descent, but the court ruled that that was not the case and that stripping them of British citizenship was therefore unlawful. Will the Home Secretary tell the House what changes have been made to the decision-making process since that case to give him confidence that he is acting lawfully now?
In removing British citizenship, the Home Secretary is essentially saying, “She’s somebody else’s problem”, but in the words of the former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne:
“Which other country is supposed to look after her on our behalf?… Can you imagine the fury here if we took a French or Italian citizen who joined Islamic State?”
Surely a British citizen, born in Britain, is a British responsibility. The Home Secretary mentioned national security in his answer. Can he explain what evidence he used to conclude that this 19-year-old mother and her new-born baby would be a threat to national security? Will he confirm that the evidence required to prosecute Ms Begum for supporting terrorism is readily available from the media? Will he explain why he is so unwilling to bring her to justice?
Finally, will the right hon. Gentleman please tell the House what he expects to happen to Ms Begum’s new-born baby boy? This child is an innocent British citizen, and we have a clear responsibility to ensure his wellbeing. What steps is the Home Secretary taking to uphold that important responsibility?

Kenneth Clarke: When I was Home Secretary, I did not deprive anyone of their citizenship, and although the power is necessary it is being used with ever increasing frequency. Every patriotic British citizen has to accept that we have fellow citizens who are extremely unpleasant and have very unpleasant and dangerous ideas. We deal with them through the rule of law—international law and domestic law. Some people are mass murderers, but we have given up transportation or exile as a response to such cases.
As this woman is only one, but several hundred have already come back and hundreds of various western nationalities are now stranded in Syria, is it not right that we should begin at least from the position that we should accept back the people who are obviously British, by every ordinary test of the word, and that others have to accept back everybody who is obviously a national of their state? Somehow leaving these people to disperse through Syria seems to me quite a serious threat to future security. We can use the full force of the criminal law  —we must—and the full resources of the intelligence services once these people have got back here. That is how my right hon. Friend is going to be able to protect the British public.

Diane Abbott: On the general question of returning foreign fighters and ISIS supporters, the President of the United States said:
“The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial.”
Does the Home Secretary accept that what the security services have been calling for is a very specialised programme of questioning, interrogation, de-radicalisation and quite possibly putting these people on trial, fashioned for this group of foreign fighters and their supporters? What is not helpful is to strip them of their nationality, which on the face of what he has said appears to be on a wholly arbitrary basis.
On the particular issue of Shamima Begum, there is no question that she has said some very reprehensible things in the media, particularly about the Manchester bombings. However, the Home Secretary knows that the Home Office lost two cases where it attempted to strip people of their nationality on the basis of Bangladeshi nationality by descent, so why is he going forward with the same strategy now? Let me remind the Home Secretary of article 15 of the universal declaration of human rights:
“(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality”.
Can the Home Secretary explain how his actions are not in breach of the articles of the declaration?

Sajid Javid: I thank the right hon. Lady for her questions. She will know—I have said this at the Dispatch Box before—that we estimate about 900 people of national security interest left the UK at some point to join terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. We estimate that about 40% have returned and approximately 20% have  died in the region. Of those who have returned, in every case we know of they have been investigated. Where there is enough evidence, they have been prosecuted for their actions.
The right hon. Lady will also understand that the part of the world they are in is a very lawless and dangerous place, so it is not always possible—in fact, it is incredibly difficult—to gather evidence of their activities that could be used to try to have a successful prosecution, either in the UK or in the other countries with whom we work closely. If we have evidence, we can help to bring about prosecutions either at home or with our allies. In each case, we work carefully with them. It is always the case that the preferred outcome is always one of justice, where there is evidence and we can be sure that there can be proper legal proceedings and proper hearings. Our preference in many of cases is to see if more people can be tried in the region. As I mentioned earlier to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), we are working with a number of other countries to see if more work can be done together. Sadly, this challenge is not unique to the UK, but is shared across many countries including our European friends.
The right hon. Lady referred to other cases, as did the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). She knows that at any time any decision made by any Minister can rightfully be challenged by anyone in court. That is their right. But it would be wrong to take one particular case that may have been in the courts and apply it to all other potential cases that follow. It is worth repeating that where legal cases may have an impact, our own legal advisers, who are incredibly experienced and take these issues very seriously, would of course take them into account.
The right hon. Lady referred to the UN declaration of human rights. We absolutely abide by that and it is incredibly important that all Governments abide by it. She quoted the declaration by saying that no one should be made stateless. That is absolutely correct. No one should ever be made stateless and that is not something we would ever do. We would never take a deprivation decision if someone, as a British national, has only one nationality. We would not do that. We would not leave anyone stateless. She also suggested that these decisions are somehow arbitrary. As I said to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), each decision is taken incredibly seriously. The facts are weighed on a case-by-case basis. It is anything but arbitrary.

Joanna Cherry: Let there be no question: everyone in this House deplores Daesh and this young woman’s choices in going to join them, and of course there are security issues that must be addressed. However, the young woman we are talking about is British. She was radicalised in Britain. Daesh is a worldwide phenomenon, but she is our problem. Why is the Home Secretary not bringing her home to put her on trial here to be judged by a jury of her peers? Apart from anything else, she may have valuable intelligence and insights into how she was radicalised. Why is he washing his hands of this problem? He cited what Lord Carlile had to say, but if he, like me, was listening to the “Today” programme this morning he will have heard Baron Anderson of Ipswich, the independent reviewer of terrorism from 2011 to 2017, suggest that we ought to be dealing with our own problems here.
I respectfully say that there is nothing that the Father of the House said with which I would disagree. The rule of law is fundamental to our democracy and if the Home Secretary thinks he can overlook the results of previous decisions, I would very gently suggest to him that he might want to seek a lecture about the doctrine of precedent from the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who is sitting beside him on the Treasury Bench. Unless this young woman holds dual citizenship, he may be found to have acted in breach of UK and international law by rendering her stateless. My question is this: is that a risk he is willing to take? Is he more interested in playing to the populist gallery than respecting the rule of law?

John Bercow: Order. Criticism by one hon. or right hon. Member of another is not a novel phenomenon. I have heard what the hon. and learned Lady said, but she has other colleagues who can pursue these matters in questioning and I am sure that she will take that opportunity. It would not be right for me to intercede at this point, other than to request that the House hears from Sir Desmond Swayne.

Sajid Javid: In cases where terrorists or suspected terrorists are returning to the UK a number of powers are available, including, for example, temporary exclusion orders, which have been used and can place a number of restrictions on someone, including the port of entry and reporting requirements, as well as other restrictions. We would always look first at what existing powers we can use, and if we feel that they are not sufficient, we would always look at what more might need to be brought to the House.

Sajid Javid: I have had some dealings with the hon. Lady in the past. She is a wonderful woman, and she is a lot better than that question. Perhaps it is a Whip’s handout—that is not her.
Much of her question has already been answered in this urgent question, but I am happy to say it again. We must ensure that at all times we are fair, that we are acting morally and also lawfully. As I have said, such important decisions cannot be taken lightly. The facts must be weighed very carefully, and decision taken only when all alternatives have properly been taken into account.

Tom Brake: May I bring the Home Secretary back to the answer he gave to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is no longer in her place? He referred to the Prevent programme. It clearly does very valuable work, but, as far as I am aware, it is a UK-based programme, so the question remains: in what way can he find out why or how a young woman was radicalised when she was a child if she is in a camp in Syria? What assessment has he made of the risks of a large number of people remaining in a camp in Syria, and developing networks there that provide us with a risk here at home?

Rehman Chishti: Having previously successfully pushed the Government to accept the correct terminology, Daesh, to defeat the idea, the ideology and the appeal which is sucking in hundreds of individuals from the UK to  Syria and Iraq to fight for this poisoned ideology and entity, may I ask the Home Secretary the following? Peter Neumann, one of the world’s best experts, based at King’s College London, has said the presumption must be for host countries to take back their foreign fighters. Unlike France, which is taking back 120 of its foreign fighters straight away in one lump, will the United Kingdom be looking at taking them back in a gradual way, for example taking back first those who assist the UK by giving evidence against those they have been fighting with and excluding them until they do that? Linked to that, on the issue of revoking the citizenship of individuals with dual citizenship rights, can the Secretary of State explain the following? Before the Government do that, do our Government speak to country x or y where these individuals may have originally come from to see if they will take them back? If not, they will become stateless, and that would not be what the Government want.

Sajid Javid: Each case is looked at individually, on a case-by-case basis. My hon. Friend mentioned France, and the UK and France have probably had the most people go from their countries to Syria or Iraq as foreign fighters, so we work closely with our French counterparts, and other European friends, on whether there can be a more co-ordinated approach to this challenge that we face. Cases involving individuals who may have the nationality of other countries as well are again dealt with ne on a case-by-case basis. As I have said, we would need to satisfy ourselves that they do genuinely have the nationality of another country before they can be deprived of their British nationality.

John Hayes: On a much trailed and therefore much anticipated point of order, Mr Speaker. Last April the Prime Minister announced a children’s funeral fund to give support and solace to those who have loved and lost. Despite the fact that the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), I and others have raised this matter subsequently in this Chamber, nothing more has been heard. Have you had notice, Mr Speaker, of a statement from Ministers, and if you have not, what further steps might I take to ensure that this pledge is honest and honoured, because no one should break promises to the broken-hearted?

Craig Mackinlay: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week at Prime Minister’s questions, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition chose to mention my constituency of South Thanet, whereupon graciously, sir, you allowed me the very last PMQ. I will quote what the right hon. Gentleman said:
“The Secretary of State’s decision to award the contract to Seaborne has increased the budget deficit of Thanet Council, the owners of Ramsgate port, by nearly £2 million.”—[Official Report, 13 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 877.]
That figure was clearly incorrect, as in a period of just 51 days that would amount on an annualised basis to £14.6 million, which represents some 70% to 80% of the entire revenue of the council.
As a courtesy to the right hon. Gentleman, I alerted him to my concern that he might have misled the House, and I did that within an hour of him making that statement. I also alerted you, Mr Speaker, to my concerns on this matter. A week later, I have heard nothing from the right hon. Gentleman, nor has he, upon my request, pointed me to the figures on which he has relied to make a statement to the House from the Dispatch Box.
On that same day, the right hon. Gentleman also highlighted the fact—at least from his point of view—that £800,000 had been spent with appropriate professionals on due diligence for the Seaborne contract. That is again factually incorrect; that money was spent to do due diligence across the three contracts of over £100 million, not just on the very small Seaborne contract.
I alerted the right hon. Gentleman to my concerns both last week and this morning by hand-delivered letter, and I also delivered the same letter to you, Mr Speaker. I note that the right hon. Gentleman, having been alerted to my concerns, is not in his place to redress the issue at hand, and I now seek your guidance as to how the error can be addressed in this place and what other measures I might take at your leisure.

John Bercow: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his intention to raise this point of order. That was typically courteous of him. I also note that he had informed the Leader of the Opposition of his intention to raise the matter. Moreover, I am conscious—[Interruption.] It would be helpful if I were able to communicate this point to the hon. Gentleman without the background hubbub coming from the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who is conducting what is no doubt an absolutely fascinating conversation, but which can wait. I am conscious that the hon. Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) has written to the Leader of the Opposition because I have received the copy that he sent to me.
The short answer is that if the Leader of the Opposition believes that he has inadvertently misled the House, it is open to him to correct the record. Each and every Member takes responsibility for the veracity of what he or she says in this place. I simply make the point—I am not trying to argue the toss with the hon. Gentleman; that is not for me to do—that the Leader of the Opposition might have a different view of this matter, and that his exegesis of the facts might differ from that of the hon. Gentleman. After all, that is very much in the nature of political discourse and argument. This is a subject of dispute, and perhaps of continued scrutiny.
All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that it is perfectly open to him to continue to write letters to the Leader of the Opposition if he feels that that would be a productive exercise or if he finds it therapeutic. It is alternatively open to him to take the short journey from here to the Table Office to put down some written questions. That is something that I once did myself on quite a substantial scale, so I would certainly not cavil at him doing it; it is absolutely his right. Meanwhile, he has put his concerns and his view of the facts on the record with his customary force.

Sandy Martin: I put on record the Opposition’s general concern about how the Government are scheduling secondary legislation and the limited means of scrutiny it offers. Given the serious dangers that would accrue if we get any of these statutory instruments wrong, it is regrettable that, nearly two years after invoking article 50, we are now having to rush everything through in the last few days. Neither Opposition parties nor other stakeholders can have any confidence about when each statutory instrument will be debated. Even when they have been scheduled, we sometimes do not know from hour to hour.
The explanatory memorandum states:
“Without this instrument… This may prevent trade between Northern Ireland and the EU and Third Countries after the UK leaves the EU.”
It also states:
“If this legislation is not progressed then this would result in an incomplete statute book on Day 1 of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”
The Opposition will support these regulations today, but I would be grateful if the Minister addressed our questions about the process, about what replaces EU procedures and, specifically, about the replacement for Council directive 2006/88.
Some stakeholders were not able to comment on this statutory instrument because they needed to prioritise many other much larger, more contentious pieces of secondary legislation, such as the Floods and Water (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and the Fisheries (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, both of which we opposed recently. We run the risk of exposing ourselves to unintended consequences if we continue to pass rushed legislation that has not had external scrutiny.
We have, at most, 90 minutes to consider this statutory instrument, and there is no real chance for amendments. There has been no time for impact assessment and only very limited consultation. Can the Minister be absolutely certain that no mistakes have been made, such as the blunder on the revocation of some of the powers of the inshore fisheries conservation officers as part of the Government’s so-called red tape challenge?
The explanatory memorandum states that this statutory instrument has
“no, or no significant, impact”.
Can the Minister tell us how significant an impact would have to be before it is reckoned to be significant?
One consequence of leaving the EU will be the potential loss of pan-European scientific expertise. We currently have access to Europe-wide research and analysis to shape our decisions. What steps are being taken to ensure that the scientific advice will be of the same technical and authoritative standard after these regulations are transposed? What additional funding will be allocated to Northern Ireland research to plug this gap? How will we continue to tap into EU scientific expertise, and what negotiations are taking place on continued participation in the EU’s intelligence-sharing networks?
Although we do not doubt our scientific community’s expertise on aquatic animal health and plant life, unless we adhere doggedly to European Union standards, over which we will no longer have any control, we will be placing an extra workload on our scientific advisers, which they may not have the resources to fulfil.
The Minister mentioned the changes to directive 2006/88 but, for the avoidance of doubt, what will replace the EU standing committee on the food chain and animal health in Northern Ireland? Given that the Northern Ireland Assembly is not sitting, and probably will not be sitting after 29 March, what elected body will take on the responsibilities of the European Parliament in this matter, as per the procedure referred to in article 62(2) of the directive?
The explanatory memorandum states:
“Whilst the UK will be under no legal obligation to adhere to EU rules for aquatic animal health following EU exit, failure to do so could result in the UK being unable to trade in aquaculture…products with EU Member States and third countries.”
The UK exports a very large proportion of fish and shellfish, so it seems important that there should be a similarly rigorous system for establishing disease-free zones—one that mirrors the current EU process—otherwise there would be a very real likelihood that the EU will refuse to take Northern Ireland’s produce in future. What plans does the Minister have to mirror the current level of scrutiny for declaring disease-free zones?
This statutory instrument changes the Northern Irish law that implements directive 2006/88, and it is designed to preserve the existing level of environmental protection by maintaining the current approach to aquatic animal health and the management of aquaculture. The Minister mentioned regulation 2016/249, which will apply from 2021, and I fail to understand some of the links in this statutory instrument—I apologise for that, but I could not find anyone who does understand them—so will he explain what his Department will do?
What are the Minister’s plans to introduce UK legislation to implement the commitments provided for in the new EU animal health strategy? What assessment has the  Department made of the influence of climate change on the emergence of new diseases, the prevalence of existing diseases and the geographic distribution of disease agents and vectors, as mentioned in the EU animal health strategy 2007 to 2013? If the Department has not undertaken any such assessment, and has no plans to do so, does it not mean that we will need to continue to rely on the EU to do this work for us and that we will have to adhere to whatever further directives the EU comes up with?
We will support these regulations because we need to address the deficiencies in domestic legislation that will arise from Brexit. Northern Irish law must be able to operate after the UK leaves the EU, and it must not leave Northern Ireland unable to trade with European Union countries including, of course, the Republic. We must be careful there are no unintended consequences that would risk the health of aquatic animals or that would fail to facilitate trade, so I would be grateful if the Minister could address the points I have raised.

Alan Brown: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will be brief. The way these SIs have been presented today sums up the chaos and farce of this UK Government. The one that merited the most debate was the one on motor insurance, but it has been pulled by the Government at the last minute, leading us to the one before us. In principle, I do not like this place legislating for Northern Ireland when something should be undertaken by the devolved Assembly. I suggest that the UK Government should be doing much more to get the devolved Assembly up and running, to allow it to take responsibility where it has the right competences.
Despite that, I accept that we are dealing with mainly technical amendments, bringing EU legislation into domestic legislation. For that reason, I certainly would not oppose this SI. Leaving aside the technical amendments, one reason why this SI has come here for debate is because of the view of the Commons sifting Committee. It expressed concerns about the legislative function of appropriate buffer zones to prevent the introduction of exotic diseases to aquatic species in Northern Ireland. Will the Minister say what the implications are for the competent authority in Northern Ireland? Will he confirm what the outcome of his consultation with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs officials was? The consultation is referred to in the explanatory notes, so will he confirm its outcome?
Finally, if we are looking at a potential no-deal scenario, I suggest that the UK Government should be absolutely focused in their efforts on ruling out a no-deal outcome. They should get it off the table and listen to the will of this House, because that will have a far bigger potential impact on the aquaculture industry and it really should be the focus for this Government. Their focus should be on taking a no-deal scenario off the table.

George Eustice: First, let me address the points made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). This is an important issue and I take exception to the suggestion that a transport issue could be more important than aquaculture. As I said at the beginning, is an important industry in Northern Ireland, but it is also an important industry in Scotland. He will be aware that the Scottish Government have brought forward their own regulations to ensure that these EU regulations are operable in UK law and that Scottish authorities can continue to regulate the aquaculture sector in a way that is important.
The hon. Gentleman raised an important issue about the sifting Committee, which had indeed recommended that this SI be debated on the Floor of the House and is an affirmative resolution, rather than a negative resolution, as was the initial proposal. As he said, the Committee picked up on the reference to the ability to establish “buffer zones”. It raised a concern that this was a new power, but I can confirm that it is not a new power. This power already exists and it was probably a misunderstanding of the way the provision is phrased that led the Committee to consider that this was a new power being taken. In fact, DAERA, on behalf of Northern Ireland, has always been able to exercise this power. That said, given the importance of this issue, we chose not to challenge the sifting Committee recommendation that it should be debated, even though we believe it may have been based on a misunderstanding. I am happy to clarify here on the Floor of the House that the power to establish appropriate buffer zones is not a new power, but one that already exists.
Turning to the points made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), I can confirm that his understanding is exactly right: officials in DAERA will continue to be responsible for the licensing of aquaculture activities. The whole purpose of all these Brexit SIs is that they maintain the status quo and that there will be no change. Indeed, without them, there would be some doubt about whether DAERA would be able to exercise the full suite of powers available to it, because elements of the retained EU law that it will rely upon would become inoperable. This SI corrects any of those said deficiencies.
Finally, let me address the comments made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin). He asked what we will do when we do not have the EU to give us the science in these areas, to make regulations and to tell us what we ought to be doing. I simply say that as we leave the EU it will be for us to decide these things and we have some of the best fisheries science in the world. Across the UK, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science is our lead fisheries science agency. It is a world-leading agency and other Governments right across the globe seek input and expertise from our British fisheries science agencies.
Northern Ireland has its own CEFAS equivalent—its own Northern Ireland-based fisheries science capability, hosted within the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute. The AFBI is a multidisciplinary organisation, with 650 staff involved in all sorts of high-technology research and development. It leads on fisheries science. This morning, I met Mark McCaughan who is a chief scientific officer on fisheries. The AFBI has a fisheries science base in Stormont and it leads on all the key technical work that needs to be done on issues such as fish health and preventing invasive species. As I pointed out in my opening remarks, the Northern Ireland Administration and the Irish Government have had long-standing co-operation on building joint management plans for sectors such as mussels that predates the EU. These arrangements will continue; they do not need the EU to stand behind them. It is a single epidemiological area in the case of the island of Ireland, and there has always been close co-operation on these matters.
There is a tendency for all these debates to cover lots of technical detail, as the hon. Gentleman said. However, it is important to remember that all we are doing with  these SIs is substituting the words “United Kingdom Government” for “the European Commission” and making other such amendments. We are not making substantive changes. Members need to bear in mind that probably the most pernicious so-called Henry VIII power of all was the European Communities Act, because section 2(2) of that Act meant that with negative instruments all over the place the European Commission was in effect able to rampage through our domestic law book. The irony is that when any of these regulations were introduced in the House via a negative SI, sometimes to implement delegated Acts from the European Union, there would have been little or no parliamentary scrutiny. It is only now, as we seek to make those regulations that have been in place for some time operable, that Members seem to be concerned.

George Eustice: The point that hon. Gentleman describes in some detail is a point that I explained in my opening speech when I talked about cross-references. If the retained EU law retained a reference to an EU directive, that would no longer be operable, because EU directives would no longer apply in the EU. The only way to make such provisions operable is to have a reference point in UK law. The 2006 regulations will become retained EU law on a UK legal basis. All we are saying is that we will change references to the original directive that gave rise to the regulation and make them references contained within the regulations themselves, in order that they will remain operable. It is quite complicated, but essentially it boils down to this: EU directives will cease to have effect in the UK after we leave, but retained EU law will continue to have effect, so if there are provisions in directives that we wish to retain, we must bring them over in the retained EU law. In this case, we do that with the regulation concerned.
We have explored some of the key areas of this statutory instrument. I hope I have been able to reassure Members not only that this instrument is essential to ensure that we have an operable rulebook in this area on day one of exit, but that we are not creating any policy changes or new policy through this statutory instrument. We are simply ensuring that the arrangements that pertain today can continue. I therefore commend the motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.

George Eustice: I beg to move,
That the draft Fertilisers and Ammonium Nitrate Material (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 16 January, be approved.
This instrument makes amendments to domestic legislation and retained direct EU legislation that would otherwise not be operable after our exit from the European Union. It makes only those changes required to ensure a smooth exit from the European Union and does not change the definition or compositional requirements of fertilisers.
Fertilisers are essential yearly inputs for the UK agricultural, horticultural and amenity sectors. The UK is a net importer of fertiliser products, with only domestic production of potash, polyhalite, ammonium nitrate and lime contributing to the UK’s total fertiliser requirement. The legislation on fertilisers concerns the manufacturing and marketing of products. It provides for the definition, composition, labelling and packaging requirements for specific categories of fertilisers that are set out in lists. This legislation does not address the application or use of fertilisers. Such issues tend to be dealt with through separate provisions in measures such as the nitrates directive.
In 1975, the EU created its first set of legislation relating to fertilisers. However, the wide disparity in existing fertiliser rules between member states, and the bulky nature of these materials restricting cross-border trade, meant that it was not suitable to fully harmonise rules on all fertilisers throughout the EU. Instead, fertiliser rules were partially harmonised to begin to remove technical barriers to trade within the EU. That means that the UK has kept its existing domestic framework alongside the EU framework. The EU regulation sets out the requirements for so-called EC fertilisers, or previously EEC fertilisers, which can be sold freely across the European Union. Manufacturers can choose which framework to market their products under. This partial harmonisation remains in place today.
The current domestic framework for any material described as a fertiliser is the Fertiliser Regulations 1991. In the EU, the current framework is the EU regulation EC 2003/2003, which applies only to fertilisers labelled “EC fertiliser”. It was implemented in UK law by the EC Fertilisers Regulations 2006. In addition, ammonium nitrate fertilisers are controlled through safety regulations that apply to all ammonium nitrate in Great Britain.
This statutory instrument amends domestic legislation that is out of date and addresses the failures of retained EU law to operate effectively, along with other deficiencies arising from the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. Part 2 of the instrument amends out of date references in the domestic legislation. For example, it omits references to “EC fertilisers” and “EEC fertilisers” to ensure clarity for users of the legislation.
In the case of EU legislation, part 3 of this instrument amends retained EU law to ensure that it will operate effectively after exit day. For example, references to  member states and the Commission are amended to refer instead to UK authorities. A requirement as to the language to be used on labels is also amended. It replicates the EU framework in UK law, replacing the “EC fertiliser” label with a new equivalent “UK fertiliser” label. The requirements will otherwise remain the same. The instrument also amends the EU framework to include a provision that preserves the ability of relevant bodies in the UK to continue to be able to take certain actions such as prescribing how specified fertilisers should be identified. Part 4 amends domestic legislation as a result of exit, ensuring continuity of supply by recognising the EC fertilisers label for a two-year transitional period after exit day. This will minimise burdens on businesses and authorities and enable suppliers to use up existing stocks, both of fertilisers and packaging. The amendments in the statutory instrument do not change the definition, compositional requirements, or labelling or packaging rules for fertilisers, whether they are marketed under the existing domestic framework—the 1991 regulations—or the EU framework.
Ammonium nitrate fertilisers are additionally covered by domestic safety regulations, since they can be misused as improvised explosives and pose safety risks if mishandled in manufacture, transport or storage. It is worth noting that part 4 of the instrument also amends the regulations surrounding ammonium nitrate fertilisers with high nitrogen content in Great Britain, to treat imports from EU member states the same as imports from other third countries in line with World Trade Organisation obligations.
Under the GB ammonium nitrate regulations, the rules for imports from the EU are different from those for imports from outside the EU. In light of WTO rules, it would not be possible to retain these differences, so the instrument amends some aspects of the ammonium nitrate regulations, in particular the detonation resistance tests, to apply the more stringent of the two regimes to all imports after the end of the two-year transition period and to uphold current safety standards.
The definition of what constitutes a “batch” of ammonium nitrate differs depending on whether the import comes from the EU or elsewhere.

Julian Sturdy: This is a very important issue for the fertiliser industry. Could he could clarify whether this provision would give the opportunity to Ministers and the Department to charge fees to cover the costs of tests needed for official control measures?

George Eustice: My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why the regulations were referred by the sifting Committee for debate. There is already a power in the existing regulations for authorities to make charges for that testing. All we sought to do in drafting was retain that ability. Broadly speaking, the testing we do here in the UK is run by the Health and Safety Executive at our facility in Buxton and it tends to be a commercial choice for the fertiliser companies whether to use that or to use an alternative at their own cost. There is not really a cost recovery mechanism that is deployed beyond that; it is simply based on research done by the companies. We have clarified and made a change to the drafting of the regulation to be clear that we simply seek to retain the existing abilities to charge rather than to create new ones.
Continuity of supply is ensured by a transitional period for imports from the EU, which provides 99% of imported ammonium nitrate to the UK. That allows the continuation of current rules on the time limit for detonation resistance tests, and the ability to recognise EU laboratory test certificates. These arrangements give manufacturers time to prepare for compliance with the import rules post exit and reduces any burdens on UK laboratories immediately after exit.
The definition of what constitutes a “batch” of ammonium nitrate differs depending on whether the import comes from the EU or elsewhere. We have taken a view on that regarding when the quantity of material manufactured without alteration of composition or characteristics is longer than 92 days. We will therefore retain the EU definition of “batch”.
The instrument was previously presented to the sifting Committees on 1 November 2018 as one that should be subject to the negative procedure. As I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy), the sifting Committee did not agree. It considered that the effect of one regulation was to allow Ministers to charge fees. In addition, it considered that the instrument conferred powers to legislate. It therefore recommended that this instrument be debated in Parliament. The instrument has been amended since it was presented to the sifting Committee to reflect certain recommendations in the Committee’s report. For example, the provisions that the Committee considered to confer powers to legislate have been redrafted to make it clear that they do not contain new legislative functions.
In general, fertiliser policy, as with other agriculture policy, is devolved. The devolved Administrations were closely engaged in developing these regulations, which apply to the same geographical area as the original legislation that they amend. All Administrations have agreed to maintain a single common framework for fertilisers labelled as UK fertilisers, while continuing their own domestic framework. That will make the marketing of fertilisers much clearer for industry, and is a good example of how well the four Administrations work together towards a common goal.
The instrument relates to the maintenance of existing regulatory standards, with no significant impacts or new administrative or economic burdens on business or other stakeholders. Although there was no statutory requirement to consult on the instrument, officials have held discussions with key stakeholders, including the fertiliser manufacturers’ representative body, which is the Agricultural Industries Confederation, and the farmers’ representative body—obviously, the National Farmers Union. Their main concerns have been addressed by allowing for a transitional period for existing rules and compliance with the amended rules.
In conclusion, the changes to the rules on ammonium nitrate have been developed in conjunction with the HSE and the Home Office, to ensure that safety and security elements are maintained. This package of measures is essential to ensure that retained EU law continues to operate effectively in the UK once we leave the EU. I commend the regulations to the House.

David Drew: I am delighted to take part in this statutory instrument debate and welcome the Minister to his place. A couple of weeks  ago I thought, when we got Committee Room 14, that we could not get a bigger audience to listen to these statutory instrument debates. How little did I know that we would end up in the main Chamber? I will sound the usual caveat that the Opposition do not think this is the way to scrutinise secondary legislation. Some of it is very important, and it is being rushed through at the speed of light. With the best will in the world, it is very difficult to scrutinise, and we are obliged to rely on the capability of the civil service to ensure that the exercise they are doing, which is largely a cut-and-paste job, is right; otherwise, mistakes will be made, which we will only learn about in due course.
The Minister was right to say that the process became an affirmative procedure at the request of the House of Commons sifting Committee, and the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) was right to point out that one reason for that was that there is a cost implication, because DEFRA has the ability to charge fees for the costs of tests. The other two reasons were that the instrument confers powers to legislate, changing the functions of the UK as a member state to functions of UK public authorities—presumably a reference to the Health and Safety Executive—and that these amendments had an impact on the safety regulations governing the import of ammonium nitrate materials from outside the EU.
The instrument before us is not a contentious piece of legislation, but it is important because ammonium nitrate, for those who know, is explosive. My own port of Sharpness, which imports fertilisers, including ammonium nitrate, was regularly policed in the days of the IRA because of what could happen to that ammonium nitrate. So we cannot but do our best to ensure that the instrument is as foolproof as possible.
I have a number of questions for the Minister. We do not intend to oppose the instrument, but it is important that we get it right. Clearly, fertilisers are crucial to agriculture, but they are also controversial. If the Agriculture Bill does return to the Floor of the House, amendments will be tabled on Report on the relationship to the Government’s environmental strategy, which is about using fewer fertilisers, and on looking at agri-ecology as an alternative way of producing our food supply. So this is quite a controversial area to the extent that there are those who would say that we should reduce, if not remove, fertilisers and find other ways to grow our food.
This instrument provides for the definition, composition, labelling and packaging of fertilisers, and given that the UK imports the vast majority of its fertiliser, we are dependent on those who wish to export it to us. That will be a substantial change, if and when we leave the EU, because we may choose to import from different parts of the world, and we must ensure that we are completely clear on the safeguards and that the regulatory regime is fit for purpose.
At the moment—I am not sure whether the Minister said this—businesses can choose whether to use the current UK regulatory regime for fertilisers or one that is available from the EU. It will be interesting to know what the Minister thinks about potential changes, and the implied costs. Again, we make our usual criticism that there is no regulatory impact assessment. It is only fair and reasonable to ask what the cost implications are.  Yesterday, I managed to take part in a debate with the Department of Health and Social Care on pharmaceuticals, and it provided a regulatory impact assessment. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does not seem to be very good at producing such assessments. Its argument is always that there are no explicit cost implications. That is easy to say, but it would be much easier for us to make a judgment if we could look at that and investigate it.
The explanatory memorandum—this may be my inability to access IT—refers to a technical note on page five, but I cannot download that note. It would be useful to know what it contains, but I may be able to obtain it in a different format. It is important that that is made available to those who need to know, whether they are in the business or whether they wish to scrutinise what we are up to.
As I have said, I have a series of questions for the Minister, as always, to keep him on his toes and make sure that we know what we are doing. The Nature Friendly Farming Network raises the case of those who have stored fertilisers that have been labelled under the EU system. What is the status of those fertilisers after the two years are up? Should they be destroyed? Can people continue to use them? Do the fertilisers have to be re-regulated? What is likely to be the situation? As we know, many farm products are stored for years, if not decades, so it is important to know the timeframe for existing products. Will the Minister say something about that, as people want certainty about it, and they need to know exactly what the implications are.
The Nature Friendly Farming Network says that the rules for imports from the EU are different from those for imports outside the EU. Presumably, we need a standard trade agreement, otherwise we will have a differentiated trade in fertilisers. What will the Minister do to ensure that that is the case, so that there is consistency?
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board does not have any particular bones of contention, but it is important that we listen to what it says, especially on the environmental effects of non-organic fertilisers. It would be a retrograde step to move away from the progressive approaches to which we have signed up as part of our membership of the EU. What are the Government doing to make sure that there is not a race to the bottom if we look for cheaper, non-organic substitutes, which would lead to all sorts of problems if they got into the water supply. At the very least, they would be likely to damage soil quality, which we discussed at great length when we considered the Agriculture Bill, and which features heavily in the Government’s draft Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill.
The principal concern of the Agricultural Industries Confederation is about certainty, which is not there because of the current Brexit situation. It would be interesting to know what discussions the Minister has had with the AIC. If we crash out and have to adopt WTO tariffs, that will have a major impact on the industry because of its reliance on imports. What analysis have the Government made of the impact on the industry and on farmers in general?
Likewise, the National Farmers Union is clear that it needs continuity and an uninterrupted supply of fertilisers. It is worried about the cost implications if we cannot  continue to source our fertilisers. I believe that most come from Spain and some come from elsewhere in the EU. That is important.
The Landworkers’ Alliance states that the agrochemicals, antibiotics and nitrate fertilisers used in intensive farming have a negative effect. What is being done to ensure, as I said earlier, that there is no race to the bottom and that we pay more than just lip service in our commitment to the environment? That is also important.
Although the Soil Association has no specific reason to doubt the Government’s intention for the faithful transposition of measures into UK law, it is concerned about the environmental objectives of the regulations, which are not necessarily spelled out as clearly as they could be. When the Minister sums up, it is important that he says something positive about that.
In conclusion, farmers need fertilisers. They need certainty about access and supply. On agroecology, we need to understand that, as the world moves forward, we will need fewer of them, but we will also need to ensure that they are good quality and, I hope, organic and that people are able to eat good, wholesome food. The one drawback from lack of access to fertilisers is that we could end up with an overabundance of phosphates and nitrates, which will have an impact on the food that we eat and the human food chain. It is important, therefore, that the Government commit to no diminution of standards. We have regularly heard them say that but we have yet to see it in legislation, and there is no better place to put it than the Agriculture Bill. I hope that the Minister is listening and that the Government will ensure that they do not just talk about the issue but carry it through in the Bill so that our soils are replete and our farming can guarantee wholesome food, which is what we all want.

Deidre Brock: Here we are once again creating legislation to replicate legislation that the dastardly EU has imposed upon us. EU legislation is so oppressive that we have to pass the same legislation to free ourselves of the tyranny of EU red tape— taking back control to change nothing.
We should take a moment, however, to consider the imports of products used by the agricultural industries and how logjam at entry points may well affect that process, no matter how many lorries park on old airfields.  The UK imports about 70% of fertilisers, very little potash but half of the ammonium nitrate and all of the phosphorus used. They cannot be stockpiled because there is no significant additional capacity, and ammonium nitrate in particular needs storage that minimises the risk of explosion. The lorries need to keep running, the ports need to keep functioning and the imports need to be frictionless, or there will be little in the way of harvest bounties, and that is before we get on to imported seed, plant protection products and animal feed. If the ports get choked with border checks and UK red tape, it will not matter what these regulations say, because food production on these islands will suffer.
I welcome the two-year transitional period, but I can see no reason why the acceptance that the EU regulations work cannot be extended indefinitely. Let the fertilisers be sold as they are now, and indeed the plant protection products, seed and the animal feed. We trust the EU, don’t we? I also welcome the requirement for Ministers to get the approval of the devolved Administrations before making regulations about fertilisers. That seems a very sensible way forward and a path that other Departments could consider following. The various Administrations offer wisdom that should be welcomed, and we trust the Scottish Government, don’t we?
I do have concerns about the regime to control the quality of the products available, particularly when I consider that Ministers will face the temptation of reducing the tariffs on Russian products, particularly ammonium nitrate. The anti-dumping duties that the EU imposes on Russian ammonium nitrate will disappear unless they are replicated by the regulations, and the implications that will have for the quality of imports is certainly worth considering carefully. It will be an issue that gets snarled up in any future trade negotiations both with the EU and with Russia.
I would like to believe the Government will ensure quality and resist the temptation to cut tariffs and duties, but I would have liked to believe there was actually a plan for the Brexit negotiations, or at least some impact assessments that looked at what is actually happening. I have certainly been sorely let down on that. I would be grateful for the Minister’s view when he responds. Further to the fact that the Minister mentioned that more stringent regulations will now be applied to ammonium nitrate from the EU, in line with those currently applied to countries outwith the EU, what added costs might result from those extra regulations?
This is one of hundreds of statutory instruments that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs —despite the best efforts, I am sure, of its civil servants—is lagging behind on. The National Audit Office report on DEFRA’s readiness for Brexit was scathing in its assessment, to the point that I think we have to regard it as an impossible task for DEFRA to get ready.
I wish there was a way of ensuring that the products farmers need to produce food will get to them, but the sudden shutting off of the supplies that they need looks set to become a reality, whatever secondary legislation is passed here. A better decision by far would be to extend article 50 and see whether things could be reconsidered. I am tempted by the thought—the hopeful possibility—that we could pass this legislation and guarantee supply, but I know that is not realistic. I have many concerns about the import regime to follow and the corralling of powers in Ministers’ hands.
It is disappointing to say the least that this is the best on offer. It is disappointing that a Government who claimed so much was possible is content with this. I really hope that that failure does not come back to haunt us all.

Alan Brown: In terms of scaremongering, was the Minister’s boss, the Environment Secretary, scaremongering yesterday when he said that in a no-deal situation he could not guarantee exports and imports would continue at our borders, and that livestock exports from the UK would be subject to high tariffs? Was that scaremongering as well?

James Brokenshire: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. At its heart, this is racism. That is why it is so intolerable and unacceptable. As the powerful analogy I just used suggests, repelling this insidious threat takes a strong immune system, in the form of leadership at all levels, in all parties and in all areas of public life, and nowhere is this more important than here at the heart of our democracy. It is why we have chosen next door to Parliament as the site for our new national holocaust memorial and learning centre, which commands cross-party support. I believe there can be no more fitting place, no more powerful symbol of our commitment to remembering the men, women and children murdered in the holocaust and all other victims of Nazi persecution, including Roma, gay and disabled people, than placing the memorial in Victoria Tower gardens, literally in the shadow of our Parliament.
In that context, I welcome the cross-party support, which was evidenced today by a joint letter signed by more than 170 Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords endorsing the memorial and the positive and enduring impact it will have. It will draw on the history of the holocaust and subsequent genocides with an education and learning centre at its core as a national resource. It will stand as a national memorial at the heart of our democracy, but equally it will stand as a warning of where hatred can lead; the role that government can play, both good and bad; and what happens if people are bystanders as it develops—what happens if they walk by on the other side. It is not just for future generations, but for us all in Parliament.
It pains me hugely to hear the powerful testimony of colleagues in the House of the abuse they have suffered either for being Jewish or for standing up to antisemitism. Some have even asserted that part of our politics is poisoned by antisemitism in an institutional way. That does not reflect the country we are or the politics for which we stand. Our debate today gives us the chance to say that we reject and oppose antisemitism and to stand together against anyone seeking to advance a narrative of bigotry, hatred and division.
For our part, the Government are taking comprehensive action to fight antisemitism and all forms of hatred. We are proud to have been the first Government to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism in 2016. Although not legally binding, it is an important tool for criminal justice agencies and other public bodies to understand what antisemitism looks like in the 21st century. It covers examples of the kind of behaviours that, depending on the circumstances, could constitute anti- semitism. Those examples include making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective through the myth of a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions, or accusing Jewish citizens  of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
Those narratives have increasingly poisoned public discourse and we should speak out against them wherever they arise, but aside from pinning down what we mean by antisemitism, the Government’s first priority must be to keep people safe, as underlined by the horrendous events last October in Pittsburgh. That people should be attacked in that way while gathering in prayer is profoundly shocking. To strengthen our determination to ensure that the Jewish community here are safe and feel safe, we continue to support the Community Safety Trust to provide security for Jewish places of worship and institutions. In recognition of the vulnerability felt by all faith communities, the places of worship security grant scheme allows places of worship facing threats to apply for funding to improve their security. To that end, the Government have provided more than £2.4 million to increase security provision for churches, gurdwaras, mosques and temples across the country. We committed further resource for that in the hate crime action plan refresh.
I am hugely conscious of the problems online, which we need to confront further and which I am sure will be a focus of a number of contributions to the debate. We will continue to work to strengthen our approach and confront all types of hate crime to ensure that it is appropriately dealt with. We will soon publish a White Paper on online harms that will consider legislative and non-legislative approaches to combat online hate crime and hate incidents alongside other forms of harmful behaviour.
Our engagement with communities on the ground and education are vital, particularly when it comes to tackling stereotypes and prejudices at an early stage before they harden and become more harmful. That is why we are supporting programmes that work with young people to challenge over-simplified narratives and encourage open conversation.
I want to pay tribute to the outstanding work of our partners. I have already mentioned the CST, whose work to facilitate reporting, to support victims of antisemitism and to provide security for Jewish institutions is vital and greatly appreciated. I want to thank the all-party group against antisemitism, so passionately chaired by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and supported by the Antisemitism Policy Trust. The work of the group ensures there is continued momentum to tackle antisemitism as part of the working group and helps to hold the Government to account. I also want to pay tribute to the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council, whose input to the cross-Government working group is invaluable in ensuring the community is properly represented, and to our Haredi stakeholders, including representatives of Shomrim and others, who make sure the specific needs of orthodox communities are not forgotten.
Together, we can and will overcome the challenges we face. Antisemitism has no place in our society—however it evolves, it is still hatred and bigotry—and we should not be afraid to call it out and to champion our Jewish community, which continues to make a towering contribution to our society without reservation. Indeed, Britain would not be what it is without our Jewish friends, neighbours and cousins. That is why in standing  up for them we are standing up for all communities who are facing hatred and for the values of tolerance, freedom and fairness that define us and define our country.
This is a mission bigger than politics—bigger than any party—and it is in that spirit that I urge all hon. Members to be standard-bearers for these values: values that are our best hope of ensuring that when we say, “Never again” we mean it.

Barry Gardiner: May I just say that I agree with every single word the Secretary of State said? I thought he spoke incredibly powerfully, with great seriousness and with great measurement.
It has always been a mystery to me how anyone can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow human beings, yet here we are again in 2019 debating history’s oldest hatred. I am glad to have the opportunity to express my opposition to this unique evil and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for presiding over the debate today on antisemitism in modern society.
Antisemitism has led to some of the worst crimes in human history: pogroms, massacres, oppression, dispossession and of course the holocaust—the systematic and bureaucratic attempt to erase European Jewry from existence. Thirty years ago, in the summer of 1989, I travelled through the Berlin wall into what was then East Germany and on into Poland, where I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is one day in my life I will never forget as the full scale—the industrial scale—of the atrocities and mass murders that were committed there etched themselves into my consciousness. Never before and never since has the world seen such a cold, calculated and industrialised plan for the murder of an entire people.
That Jew hatred—for that is what antisemitism is—still exists should shock us; that it is on the rise should appal us. Antisemitism is a cancer which finds new ways, as the Secretary of State said, to mutate and to infect our political discourse, and it is not enough to be shocked and appalled; we have to act to stop this disease poisoning our society.
Before I go any further, I pay tribute to the work of the Community Security Trust and Shomrim in the Haredi community. Those organisations are tireless in their defence of the Jewish community and its synagogues, businesses, youth clubs and schools.

Barry Gardiner: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I am sure that we all have similar stories to tell about the CST’s work in our constituencies. In my own constituency of Brent North, we have a Jewish community of just under 2,000 people, and we are the home of the Jewish Free School, which is one of the oldest Jewish institutions in the UK and the largest and most academically successful Jewish school in all Europe. I worked with Arnold Wagner and David Lerner to help the school to move  from its old home in Camden to the purpose-built facilities in my community. I particularly want to thank the CST for all that it does to keep the pupils and staff there, and in all the other primary schools, safe. I just wish, as we all do, that its work was not necessary.
The CST does more than work on safety. Its work to record and analyse antisemitic hate crime is integral to our understanding of the scale of the problem that faces us. Last year, it recorded 23 antisemitic incidents in my borough of Brent alone, and 1,652 across the country. That makes for sober reading. Antisemitism is at a record high, with a 16% rise in incidents nationwide year on year and 100 incidents every month. This is the lived reality of our Jewish fellow citizens living under the strain of antisemitism. It is appalling—the arson attacks on synagogues, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, the neo-Nazi graffiti on posters for Holocaust Memorial Day, the vandalising of centres of Jewish life, the physical attacks on Jewish children at their schools or on public transport, swastikas daubed on Jewish homes and antisemitic hate mail sent to Jewish workplaces and schools. These hideous crimes are a warning to us all. We must do better, and we must be better.
That brings me to the issues facing my own party, the Labour party. It was the Labour party that introduced the Race Relations Act and the Equality Act, and it has put fighting inequality, racism and prejudice at the core of who we are and what we believe in. How can it be that we are struggling so badly to eradicate antisemitism from our own membership? I joined the Labour party because I believed it was quite simply the best vehicle for progressive social change in this country. I still do, but no party has a monopoly on virtue, and in the Labour party we are learning a bitter lesson. For all the strength and passion that we have derived from the mass influx of new members that has seen our party grow to more than 500,000 strong, we have not had adequate procedures in place to react swiftly and decisively to that small minority of members who have expressed sometimes ignorant but often vicious, dangerous and vile antisemitic views.
On behalf of my party, I want to publicly apologise to the Jewish community that we have let them down. We know it and we are trying to do better. We are trying to become the party that we have always aspired to be. We will not stop working until we once again become a safe and welcoming political home for people from the Jewish community, as from every other. The Secretary of State said that we stand here today to say of antisemitism that we reject it. We do. We must.

Stephen Doughty: My hon. Friend is making an important point, but the reality is that words, however sincerely meant, must be matched with action. Does he agree that it is completely unacceptable to have, for example, elected Labour representatives saying things like, “The Jewish community have got it all in their own heads”? He gave us examples of the reality of antisemitism affecting communities, and I have seen it with my own eyes in my communities in Cardiff. It is not “in their own heads.” Neo-Nazi and far-right activity is real and it is hateful, and we must unequivocally stand against it.

Stella Creasy: I thank my hon. Friend for recognising that we have let down the Jewish community. We have lost a very good colleague because we failed to stop what was essentially constructive dismissal. Does he agree that this is not about asking our Jewish members to stay and sort it out? In a movement built on solidarity, it is for all of us to act. In this instance, the concern that many of us have is that there are so many cases outstanding, yet time was found to deal with Mr Hatton’s application for readmission. We want to show that we are serious about this, and we must change our priorities and deal with these cases now.

Barry Gardiner: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are responsible for dealing with this. She will know there are procedures and committees within the national executive committee that deal with complaints and others that deal with other processes.
Let me be clear that anyone who denies the reality of antisemitism on the left, anyone who thinks that antisemitism is a legitimate part of criticising the political actions of the Israeli Government and anyone who says that complaints about antisemitism are smears on our party is wrong. They do not have the endorsement of the Labour party, they do not have the endorsement of its leader and they need to take a long, hard look at themselves. They have adopted what Bebel labelled the “socialism of fools.”
Our party must call out this poisonous ideology, which encourages people to place the blame for society’s ills at the feet of the vulnerable and persecuted, whether they be immigrants, the unemployed, refugees or those from a different ethnic or religious background. The Labour party has long fought the dissemination of such false narratives, which we know serve only to divide us and distract us from our common cause of a fairer society.
Antisemitism, with its conspiracy theories, seeks to divide ordinary working people. The lies that it propagates about wealth, power and designs on world domination are as dangerous as they are stupid. Those on the far left who are foolish enough to believe that their antisemitism is a form of anti-elitism or anti-imperialism have no place in the Labour party or any modern political party.
Last year, a major study analysing news stories across the English-speaking world found that, according to every metric, fake news is more popular and more widely consumed than factual, accurate stories. We truly live in an era of fake news and imagined enemies, where explicit abuse hides behind anonymous avatars and where political debate is shaped by memes and viral videos. The rise of fake news is dangerous for all of us, but this danger is most acute for the Jewish community and it is felt intensely. There are approximately 170,000 antisemitic online searches each year in the UK alone, but the scale of the challenge must not daunt us or deter us from what needs to be done.

Barry Gardiner: Quite simply, my hon. Friend is right, and I pay tribute to the work he has done for many, many years; it is for our shadow Cabinet, as it is indeed incumbent on all of us in this party, to ensure that we have the processes in place to eradicate this poison from our party. If we look at what took place in our party recently after the change in leadership, we see that the number of places on the committee concerned, the national constitutional committee, had to double to deal with the cases that were there; new processes were introduced so that we could speed up dealing with the number of cases that were there. That is the process that is going to take place, but he is right to say that it is not just about process—it is not. It is about leadership and politics, and making sure that we get the message out there into the wider society that wherever this happens it is unacceptable and will be dealt with. Yes, it will be dealt with by the proper process, but the outcomes at the end of that process must be the right ones.

Ruth Smeeth: Does my hon. Friend, to whom I am grateful for making this speech, agree that under any other leader of the Labour party the leader would have instructed people to be expelled?

John Bercow: If the hon. Gentleman wants to take the intervention, we will then hear the content of it? Does he wish to do so?

Barry Gardiner: It is only through education that we will protect future generations from falling into insidious falsehoods and conspiracy theories. I had the privilege of hearing Gena Turgel, the holocaust survivor who was known as the bride of Belsen, speak to a group of children at JFS school a few years ago. She was the most wonderful, humane and powerful voice, educating successive generations about the horrors of antisemitism. I simply record with sadness her passing since our previous debate on antisemitism in this Chamber last year.
Those horrors are not yet a distant memory. Our colleague Lord Alf Dubs was one of the children who came to this country as part of the Kindertransport, which brought 10,000 Jewish children to safety in Britain. Alf’s work, both at the Refugee Council and in setting up safe passage for refugee children today, is just one example of the legacy that survivors have bequeathed to this country.
It is now 80 years on from Kristallnacht and we must amplify the voices of people like Alf, Gena Turgel and other holocaust survivors as they share their stories and educate the next generation. The holocaust happened. It counts as one of the greatest crimes in human history. This January, in Bushey, I was with the Secretary of State when 1,200 mourners attended the burial of those six unknown Jews—five adults, one child—murdered at Auschwitz. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis spoke powerfully at the funeral, saying:
“We need a strong reminder such as this to let us know what can result, even within a democratic society, what can result if anti-Semitism, if racism and xenophobia, go unchecked.”
Looking around the world, it is clear that to tackle this evil we must adopt an internationalist approach. A survey published by the European Union in December found that almost nine out of 10 European Jewish  people feel that antisemitism has worsened in their respective countries over the past five years. Right-wing nationalist politics continues its forward march, with devastating consequences for minority communities. In France, the torching of synagogues and assaults on Jewish people on the Metro have resulted in thousands of Jewish people leaving for Israel.
The horrendous mass shooting of Jewish congregants at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in American history, and watching far-right protesters in Charlottesville chant “The Jews will not replace us” was quite simply chilling.
Last year, the Polish Government introduced legislation that reads:
“Whoever claims…that the Polish Nation…is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich…shall be liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to 3 years.”
That is an attempt to whitewash the Holocaust.
Viktor Orbán’s Government in Hungary has deployed antisemitic rhetoric, and their campaign against George Soros has invoked obvious antisemitic tropes. I shall not talk about the support that the Hungarian Government received in the European Parliament, because the Secretary of State set the tone for the debate, which is that antisemitism is something that we need to tackle from every corner of this Parliament.
I thank all colleagues from all parties who are here to express their solidarity with the Jewish community. To all who may be listening and paying attention, I would like to say something very clearly: when Jewish people express their concerns about antisemitism, regardless of their background, their beliefs or where they sit on the political spectrum, they must be listened to. Their anxieties are genuine, they are real, and they should be a cause of concern for every person, for every socialist and for every anti-racist in this country. In this place, we create laws to solve the fundamental question of how, with all our differences, we can live together.
I wish to conclude by reading the words of one of Israel’s greatest poets, Yehuda Amichai. He said:
“Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. ‘You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head.’ ‘But he’s moving, he’s moving!’ I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, ‘You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.’”
Once we can stop seeing the race, the religion, the colour of the skin, and to see through the man or the woman, perhaps we will rid our world of antisemitism, wherever it is found.

Guto Bebb: Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I commend the speech of the Secretary of State, which I applaud and agree with fully, and I welcome the comments from  the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), too. It is not for me to comment on what is going on in the Labour party, but suffice it to say that what is happening to our politics and to some Members of this House as a result of antisemitism stains us all. We should all offer solidarity to those Members who have been affected by vile and disgusting abuse, whether online or in person. I have nothing but admiration for hon. Members in this place who are standing up to those threats and doing so with dignity, which shows why they have been elected to this place. I congratulate them all, whether they are in the Labour party or not, for the stand they are taking. They have the support of those of us on the Government Benches.
This is a cross-party issue. One reason I wanted to speak in the debate was that back in 2013, I joined the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism. I represent a small constituency in North Wales—I think it is the smallest constituency in population terms represented by a Conservative MP—and I have a very small Jewish community. I felt that the issue was coming to the fore, however, and I decided to join the APPG. That has been the most informative and valuable work that I have done in Parliament, as well as some of the most depressing. I pay tribute to the chair of the APPG, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), for his leadership of that effort and for the opportunities he has afforded to somebody such as myself.
Back in 2013, one of the few Jewish members of my constituency was elected mayor of Conwy, and I remember having a lot of fun at the fact that Edward I, when he gave Conwy its town charter, stated that no Jews and no Welsh would be allowed to live within the town walls. It gave me a certain degree of pride that Conwy had a Conservative Jewish mayor and a Conservative MP who is as Welsh as Welsh can be.
The APPG gave me the opportunity to see the virus of antisemitism. I went to Amsterdam with the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, and I was absolutely shocked by what I saw. Back in 2014, when we were preparing a report on antisemitism, we went to a Jewish high school in Amsterdam, a city that I would consider to be a liberal city in Europe. We met a group of sixth formers, the same age as my children, and asked them a simple question, “How many of you, in a class of 22, see a future for yourselves in Europe?” One hand went up in that classroom. One single hand. If that does not shame us as Europeans, I am not sure what does.

Guto Bebb: I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. Obviously, it is good to hear that there are good news stories out there.
I undertook my second visit as part of the APPG to Brussels, with my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). We visited another Jewish school. Imagine my horror, when we drove down that street in Brussels, the capital of the European Union, to be faced with armoured personnel vehicles, protecting  that school. It is very difficult to convey the shock that one feels as a parent when one sees that kind of thing happening on the streets of the capital city of the European Union.
As a result of that work, we produced a report in 2015; I think, Mr Speaker, you were there at Lambeth Palace for its launch. One success that I achieved as part of that effort was to ensure that the radio station in Wales—Radio Wales—decided to cover the launch, because in me, as a Welsh MP, they had someone willing to talk on radio about the issue. I was struck by the fact that the reporters who visited Jewish communities in constituencies such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) were taken aback by what they found. What we had noted in Amsterdam and Brussels was starting to infect the capital city of Wales and other cities across the United Kingdom. What I had seen in Amsterdam and Brussels as something new and strange, shockingly was affecting the very Jewish communities that we represent as MPs—whether in Wales, England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. That report was an important piece of work because it highlighted the need to change. We should take the APPG’s contribution in that respect very seriously.
Unfortunately, even though that report was produced in 2015, the situation has got worse. I am not sure how we explain the virus that has infected social media and our political discourse. I am not going to stand here and say that it is all the fault of the Corbynista takeover of the Labour party, because there are problems on both sides of the political equation. We must deal with a fundamental issue—the way in which the discourse on social media has been so badly polluted by this age-old hatred. There is a responsibility on all of us, especially those in positions of leadership in any political party in the Chamber, to take those issues seriously. It is simply unacceptable, when members of political parties are identified as being responsible for this hate speech on social media and in person, that they are not thrown beyond the pale of our politics.

Stephen Doughty: I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend is saying. Does he agree that, unfortunately, what we are seeing on social media is a swamp in which everything else breeds, and whether that is going on in my party or in society more generally, it gives rise to some serious and violent behaviour? Does he agree that groups like System Resistance Network—neo-Nazi organisations operating in Wales, targeting Jews, Muslims, gays and the police—need to be proscribed and dealt with, and that Twitter, still hosting an account called Radio Arian which broadcasts neo-Nazi ideology, needs to take action today to remove it?

Guto Bebb: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. One of the APPG’s current work programmes deals with the behaviour of social media companies, such as Facebook. We all know that they have a responsibility, and it is imperative that we speak with one voice on that issue. How much more important it is, however, that we face those social media companies knowing that we have put our own house in order. So I fully agree with those comments, but we must do more.
I highlighted the fact that this issue does not just face one party in this place. Part of the “Jewish conspiracy” issue, which appears online, is the detachment from reality of those conspiracy theories. Nothing illustrates  that better than a rather vile piece of work that has appeared online, entitled, “A Very Jewish Coup: The Plot to Stop Brexit.” It is really shocking. Mr Speaker, you are named as an individual who is part of the plot, as are my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve). They are all highlighted as part of a Jewish plot to stop Brexit. That is utterly vile and unacceptable. It is also nonsense, because another individual highlighted as part of that plot is none other than my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole. Now, we are good friends, but on Brexit we do not agree. However, I would be hard-pressed to categorise my hon. Friend as an individual who is devoting his time in this place to stopping Brexit. That is the point—truth has nothing to do with anti- semitism, which is about hatred, inadequacy and attacking others for being different. That is the key point about this vile piece of work. It is an attack on others simply to justify political views that are unacceptable.

Emma Little Pengelly: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that part of the problem is that on social media people can hide behind an anonymous handle, and can spread this type of vile abuse—lies and untruths—and bounce off one another? One of the things that social media companies could do to prevent that from happening is identify who these people are so that when these things are reported to the police they can be prosecuted and banned from social media sites.

Guto Bebb: Once again, I agree with the sentiments that the hon. Lady has expressed. That was taken up with some social media companies on a recent visit by the all-party parliamentary group to Washington, so I subscribe to that comment.
Clearly, we have a problem, but there are good news stories out there. I want to touch on one of them, although it is tinged with a degree of regret. In my constituency, our holocaust memorial event, which takes place every year has gone from strength to strength. It has been one of the greatest privileges in my time as Member of Parliament for Aberconwy to welcome holocaust survivor after holocaust survivor to speak at these events. It is not just one event on a Sunday evening with 300 or 350 people turning up. The organisers ensure that the speakers visit local schools on the following Monday and Tuesday, and the feedback from those schools has been absolutely phenomenal. The opportunity to speak to someone who survived the holocaust will never be forgotten by the young people of my constituency.
This year, for the first time ever, the holocaust memorial event in Llandudno highlighted not only the historical tragedy of the holocaust but invited a group of Jewish people from Manchester and their rabbi to highlight the threat that they face in 2019, in Manchester, in the United Kingdom. I have to say, listening to the comments of a Hungarian survivor of the holocaust, then listening to fellow citizens from Manchester on the same evening, was a truly shocking experience. If we have not learned anything, it is shame on all of us.
Finally—and this is a point for my Front Bench—the holocaust survivor from Hungary, Susan Pollack, spoke passionately. She was an 86-year-old lady, and she said at the event:
“We could not escape. We did not have passports. We had lost our passports. They had been taken away from us.”
That really made me think very hard about freedom of movement, because there are Jewish schools in London where a significant proportion of the pupils are French by birth. Their families have opted to escape what is going on in France at this point in time. I would say to the Front Bench that when we talk about curtailing freedom of movement, we should be very aware of what freedom we are giving up in relation to the history of Europe in the 20th century.
It has been a pleasure to speak in the debate. It is a shame that we need to have this type of debate in the United Kingdom in 2019, but we do need it, and we need to carry on working as parliamentarians to make sure that this virus, which is a plague on our politics and on our communities, is dealt with.

Stewart McDonald: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). Although some time has passed since his resignation from the Government, this is the first chance I think I have had to say to him in the Chamber that Defence questions are not the same without him. His contribution was heartfelt and welcome, as indeed was the tone set by the Secretary of State at the beginning of the debate. I should acknowledge, not least because he is a fellow Glaswegian, the tone struck by the shadow Secretary of State.
It is somewhat depressing, as the hon. Member for Aberconwy has said, that we are debating antisemitism for the second time in less than 12 months, and we are doing so against the backdrop of Members of this very Parliament feeling that they have to leave their political party because of antisemitism. Although I have no desire to tread on the broader political grief of the Labour party, I will single out, if I may—I did not tell her beforehand that I would do this—the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger). Having looked at some of the vile poison that she has put up with, I can tell her that she has the solidarity of Scottish National party Members and our admiration for the way in which she has stood up to it.
In the previous debate on antisemitism, I was able to say, in setting out the history of antisemitism in Scotland, that we are one of the few countries, if not the only country, never to have had an antisemitic law on the statute book. Indeed, the declaration of Arbroath, which is understood to be the most ancient medieval text in existence, specifically refers to Jews and gentiles as equal. To bring things a bit more up to date, I am pleased to say that the Scottish Government have accepted in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.
I do not want to deceive Members into thinking that all is well and rosy north of the border, because the sad fact is that it is not. I thank Joel Salmon from the Board of Deputies of British Jews for the briefing he has given me, with some specific key figures on what is going on in Scotland. There have been 21 recorded incidents of antisemitism in the past year. Although that may not seem like a huge number, it does not feel all that small to Scotland’s Jewish population, given how small it is.
I want to read out a few examples of what has happened in the past 12 months. A brick was thrown at a glass door on a synagogue, but thanks to their foresight  in expecting something like that to happen, they had put non-smash coating on the glass so it did not shatter on that occasion. In another example, a woman who was converting to Judaism was spat at in the face while being called a Jew on a bus in Edinburgh.
In possibly the most vile of the examples sent to me, a Jewish organisation in Scotland received the following email:
“I’m going to kill every single one of you ugly rat-faced kikes. I think I’ll use a knife. Then after I’ve cut you, I’ll shut that dirty, filthy, lying Jew mouth of yours once and for all. Make sure you have a good hiding place ready. I’m gonna stick your children into an oven and then I’m gonna serve roasted kike to my dog. Good luck finding, you worthless piece of shit.”
I will not read out the rest, as though that was not bad enough.
A few weeks ago, the front page of the Sunday Herald featured a story about the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities highlighting the deep problem of antisemitism that too often plagues elements of Scottish society. Too many responded to that story with conspiracy theories or by saying that somehow that could not happen in Scotland or that the Jews were complaining about nothing. That is rubbish. As with any other minority community, when the Jewish community complains about being the victim of hatred and highlights it on the front page of a national newspaper, any decent person would respond by extending a hand of friendship.

Stewart McDonald: I completely agree with the hon. Lady. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) mentioned when he intervened on the Secretary of State at the start of the debate, there is perhaps a misunderstanding about how bad it actually is to be called an antisemite. I think the hon. Gentleman is right that the term perhaps feels a little too gentle sometimes. The Secretary of State himself said that people should be confronted with the fact that it is Jew hate. Let us put it to people in those stark terms, and then I think they can understand exactly what they are being accused of.
I want to draw the House’s attention to a school, Calderwood Lodge, which is actually just outside my constituency and in that of the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton). This is a brilliant example of bringing together children of different faiths to better understand people from those faiths. Calderwood Lodge is the first joint Catholic and Jewish school anywhere in the world, and I encourage all hon. Members, if they get the chance, to visit it.
In thinking, as the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) just said, about how we get young people and others to better understand the problems and understand that this is a problem for all of us, I reflect on what my own mother chose to do. My own mother, when I was in my early teens, gave me a copy of the book “The Five Chimneys”, written by Olga Lengyel, a survivor of Auschwitz, and that book has stayed with me forever. I have read it a great many times, and I will probably give the book to my own nephew when he is of an age to take in the horrors of the holocaust.
That brings me to something that had never actually crossed my mind before. About this time last year, I was very kindly invited to dinner at my vet’s house. My vet, who looks after my cat very well, is himself Jewish, and he invited me and my partner, Gordon, to come and have dinner with his family, which we duly did. This had not even occurred to me, but when we were there and we got talking around the table about antisemitism, he had to explain to me that he had not yet told his young daughters what the holocaust was and did not quite know how to approach it or at what time. It was not until I was in the car afterwards that I said to my partner, “How do you even begin to explain to your children that they belong to a faith that has been hunted in the way that Jewish people have over time?”
I want to draw my remarks to a close because I am conscious of time, and many hon. Members want to speak, so I will end with this. I was heartened, and at the same time quite depressed, to see the scenes last night from Paris, where a great number of people took to the Place de la République, rising up against antisemitism in France. The Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia, put it perfectly, in outlining the challenge for all of us not just here but around the world, when he asked in Paris last night
“who must lower their eyes? The anti-Semites or the Jews?”
Let us flip that question around: who is it who gets to raise their eyes? I preferred the days when antisemites and racists felt ashamed and they kept their eyes to the ground. But when the Jew raises her eyes, what will she be confronted with? Will she be confronted with love or hate, friendship or hate, solidarity or hate, understanding or the ignorance that drives the hate we are trying to drive out of our society today? The Jew is looking up at this debate today, and although I suspect we will all speak with one voice, as we should, against antisemitism, what will happen when the Mace is lifted up? Will we all go back to our constituencies with a hand genuinely held out and renewed in our desire for friendship and in our desire to drive out antisemitism from society, or will we have a lot of warm words and not very much by the way of action? I sincerely hope not.

Margaret Hodge: I rise to speak feeling a mixture of anger and anguish: anger at the shocking increase in antisemitic incidents in our country, and anger at the abject failure of the Labour leadership to root out the cancer of antisemitism within our party; anguish because of the stuff of antisemitism, whether online, verbal or physical, constitutes an unspeakably dreadful stain on our society, and anguish because my colleagues, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), both of whom have dedicated themselves to fighting antisemitism, feel that they can no longer stay in the Labour party and work with Labour MPs, both Jews and non-Jews, to eradicate antisemitism from our party.
It just beggars belief that on the very day the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree chose to leave the Labour party Derek Hatton was readmitted. This is a slight deviation, but I knew Derek Hatton in the 1980s. A leading member of Militant, he holds bigoted views and never believed in consistency between what he said and what he did. I remember a meeting of rate-capped councils, when he harangued the leader of one council who had told us his council was going to set a rate that night. Hatton accused the man of betraying the working classes by complying with the law. I was fed up with his hypocrisy, because that was precisely what Hatton had done the previous year. When I told him to be quiet, he turned on me and shouted, “If it’s too hot for you Margaret, get back in the kitchen.”
To return to the debate, I never ever thought that my Jewish identity would be central to my political work. I have always been secular. I arrived as an immigrant with my family at the age of four. We were not active in the Jewish community, although all our family friends were also Jewish refugees. But like so many other Jews, I lost family in the holocaust. In recent years, as my sisters trawled through family letters and diaries, that family history became more vivid and poignant for me. I read a letter from my aunt—after fleeing, she found herself in France—that she sent to Marshal Pétain, pleading with him to release her husband who had been taken from their home in the Ardèche:
“He is only a number to you. He is everything to me.”
Her husband, my uncle, was later murdered in Auschwitz.
At Auschwitz, years later, I walked into a room filled with luggage and was confronted with a battered suitcase bearing his initials. I read my grandfather’s diaries and heard the despair he expressed as he visited his parents’ graves in Vienna for the last time before fleeing the Nazis. And most painful of all, I read my grandmother’s last letter, written to her son, my uncle, nine days before she was shot in a trench outside a concentration camp, in which she twice says, “Don’t forget me completely.”
Stamping out antisemitism matters. We must never shirk our shared responsibility to prevent such horrors from happening again. We ignore the present increase in antisemitism incidents at our peril: a 16% rise, as others have said; the third year in a row that figures have reached an all-time high; a 54% increase in just one year in antisemitic abuse on social media. Complacency, denial, the shifting of blame on to others—all that is unacceptable.
This is not about weaponising racism for political advantage, an accusation that makes me profoundly angry. Likewise, for some people to claim that those fighting antisemitism are simply protecting the Netanyahu regime in Israel is deeply insulting and utterly wrong. I often criticise the actions of successive Israeli Governments where I feel that is justified, but legitimate criticism of a foreign Government should never morph into racist abuse against all Jews, as it too often does.
The increase in antisemitism comes from both the left and the right. On the right, CST analysis tells us that one in four of the incidents of recorded abuse involved language used by the far right, but under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), a platform has also been given for antisemitism, which was always present on the hard-left fringes, but has now moved into the mainstream of my party. That is why we have experienced a surge in abuse against us—abuse particularly targeted against female Jewish MPs.
I have seen the internal Labour party documents leaked to LBC that formed the agenda for one single meeting of the group tasked with investigating allegations of antisemitic abuse, and I congratulate LBC on doggedly pursuing this story. There are 47 antisemitic allegations in these documents against Labour party members. The evidence of abuse is shocking. I quote:
“He needs to check out the love fest between the Zionists and the Nazis.
People are finding out how much power Jews have. They seem to have a lot of power over the main opposition party. Might they rebel if…the reason they didn’t get a job or a home was because a Jew got it.
You are paid by Israel to destabilise UK Labour.
A Zionist plot to oust Jeremy Corbyn.
A swastika is appropriate as Israel is a fascist state.”
Some of the abuse is directed at Members of this House. LBC gave the file to Mak Chishty, who ran the hate crime unit for the Metropolitan police until 2017. He identified 17 cases that he judged were “race hate incidents” and four cases that crossed the threshold for criminal investigation. It took three months for the Crown Prosecution Service to give the police the go-ahead just for a criminal investigation. Will the Government urgently inquire into why this delay occurred and will  they also provide me with written assurance that the delay will not result in cases being dropped because they run out of time?
The documents leaked to LBC covered less than 50 cases. The Labour party has received hundreds and hundreds of complaints, yet only 12 individuals have been expelled from the party since April. I could have identified more than that from the one set of papers I saw. This tells me that the leader of the Labour party is not demanding zero tolerance of antisemitism in our ranks. Until he does, I and other members of the party will continue to call it out fearlessly, loudly and persistently.
Trust between the leader, his staff, Labour headquarters and Back-Bench Labour MPs has now broken down completely. I have absolutely no confidence in the integrity of the data that the party has provided concerning its progress. I submitted a dossier of abusive communications. The only communication that I have received back is a letter from a party member—about whom I had complained —in which he says of my complaint:
“I can’t tell you how pathetic I think this is of you, going crying to the complaints department when someone says they don’t like you.”
He had accused me of “hysterically abusing Corbyn” to advance my own agenda and had said that Jewish people in this country are not victims of anything and that I was a nasty, dishonest person. The level of care provided to MPs by the party is so pathetic that the only response one gets to complaining about antisemitic abuse is further abuse from the culprit.
This week, two Labour MPs quit the Labour party, mainly because they think the party is institutionally antisemitic. I understand and respect their decision and mourn their departure. I joined the Labour party 56 years ago because it was the natural home for Jews, with its proud tradition of fighting racism, promoting equality and fostering tolerance. I do not yet want to give up the fight for the heart and soul of a party I have worked for and with throughout my adult life. The leader of the Labour party must really listen, must really understand and must really change. If he does not do so, he will be culpable for sabotaging the values that led to the creation of the Labour party and responsible for the withering away of a once great political force.

Andrew Percy: It is a pleasure to follow the powerful speech of the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). It is also an honour to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who made an excellent speech. We have been great friends since I made a speech here against tuition fees in 2010. He told me I was wrong then and has not stopped telling me I am wrong about Brexit, but we have been great friends even since, and on this issue, as on so many others, we have worked together closely. I join him in paying tribute to my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for the work he has done chairing our all-party group on antisemitism, often in the face of abuse and, sadly recently, of threats and abuse against his nearest and dearest. He deserves great credit for his work.
I want to start on the good news. As this debate is demonstrating, most people in this country are decent, tolerant and open-minded, and that is proven, I think, by surveys in recent years. The annual Eurobarometer has consistently shown that Britain is one of the most tolerant societies in Europe, with some of the most positive views on immigration. We should never forget that that is how most people in this country feel and think.
That is the good news. The bad news, as many Members have said, is the rise of antisemitism in our country. I share the growing concern and alarm. The statistics that the Secretary of State laid out—I will not lay them out again—should shame us all in this House, on whatever side, as should the views of young Jews living in this country. A recent survey showed that 29% of British Jews had considered emigrating because of safety concerns. That is up from 11% in 2012 to now nearly a third of Jews living in this country. About a quarter of them have suffered antisemitic harassment in the last year and about one in three have suffered such harassment in the past five years. This should shame us all. It makes me embarrassed as a Member of Parliament and should shame us all.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy made a great speech about the experience of Jews living in mainland Europe. I cannot reiterate the feeling we had going to that school in Brussels, which is guarded by armed Belgian soldiers, with armoured vehicles outside. I was a schoolteacher. I never had to go through those hoops to get into my school to teach, and to think that pupils have to go through that in mainland Europe just to go to school and do the things they have a right to do is truly shocking. We asked the young people there if they could see a future for themselves in Europe and only a very few hands went up to show they could.
As many Members have said, we have a problem on both sides of politics in this country. There is a growing movement on the far right. According to all surveys, those on the far right hold the most antisemitic views in society, and that is a huge and growing problem. It should concern us all that the far right is getting younger in this country. It is tapping into this feeling of discontent and all the rest of it. As I said in the Holocaust Memorial Day debate, I am disgusted, as somebody who believes in and campaigned for Brexit, that some of these people are now trying to use that issue to further their own hateful, spiteful and poisonous political ideology. It disgusts me, and I say not in my name and not in the name of the nearly 70% of my constituents who trudged out and voted to leave the EU.
The CST contacted me a couple of weeks ago saying, “We’d like to come and talk to you, because your name is on a far-right list as somebody who is trying to stop Brexit,” as my hon. Friend highlighted. I will sit down with the CST and find out exactly what was said, but that is the nonsense perpetuated on the far right. It is fair to say that UKIP has now become a far-right party. The new leader and some of their members seem to be revelling in embracing a far-right, fascist agenda.
As many colleagues have said, antisemitism is a huge problem on the far left of politics. I will not say a great deal about that—Labour Members can speak to it better than I can—but I was outraged at the report on  Sky News that George Galloway, who has reapplied to join the Labour party, described the decision of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) to leave the Labour party as a black-ops plot against the leader. He also used the phrase “Goebbels-style” throughout.

Luciana Berger: Why are we joined here for this debate? It was almost a year ago that I shared with the House my family’s history and experience of antisemitism through the centuries. My mother’s family were expelled from Spain in the 15th century. I spoke about the more than 100 members of my family aged from four to 83 who were murdered by the Nazis in the gas chambers of Treblinka, Sobibór, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz.
What has happened since that last debate? It pains me to say this and share with the House that we have gone backwards, as we have heard from hon. Members’ contributions. We have not seen the progress we should have seen over the course of the past 11 months. On a  personal level, I have in the past year alone seen a further two people convicted: one from the far-right, imprisoned after he threatened to kill me, convicted under counter-terrorism legislation, and another just before Christmas, a former member of the Labour party convicted of harassment. That takes my tally to six or seven individuals, depending on how you interpret it, convicted of antisemitic-inspired hate crimes and threats.
And there is a significant amount of antisemitism which might not reach the criminal threshold but that has surfaced. I have been subjected to thousands of messages of antisemitic abuse and hate, and I want to reflect on what I have seen in just the past week and share with the House the range of terms I have seen; they range from the ridiculous to the truly disturbing. There might be a small minority who think I am a “Zionist lizard” or that I am responsible for Eurovision taking place in Israel. It is sadly all too common to be addressed as “an evil little witch” or a “murderous Zionist.”
Abuse is only part of the problem. Arguably more concerning, as we have heard already, is the rise of insidious antisemitic conspiracy theories: that I am an agent of Mossad, that I am a traitor to my country, that I am paid directly by Benjamin Netanyahu, based purely on my Jewish background. The comments underneath my posts on social media are filled with individuals calling me the MP for Tel Aviv or asking whether a Member of Likud can stand for election in our country. And just yesterday an individual who says they are a member of the Labour party and with the hashtag “JCforPM” in their bio—they have been on Twitter for an extended period of time and have hundreds of followers, so this is not a bot that has been created—said:
“shame on Luciana Berger, A Zionist Bitch, I hate her, I hate her baby, her Israel.”
Elsewhere an official Labour-affiliated group, Young Labour, announced that the departure of my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) would mean that “Palestine Lived” and then proceeded in bullying the Jewish chair of Young Labour, while influential Twitter users have wished “good riddance” to “Israel’s fifth columnists.” They have called myself and hon. and right hon. Friends “the Israel stooges party”, “the Israeli apartheid democratic front” and so on. Others have alleged that the Rothschilds and George Soros will declare their backing for the new independent group. I share all this because this is what is happening in our country, from people across the country, during the past week and today in particular.
In the Labour party, my political home for nearly 20 years until I resigned from it on Monday, I have seen obfuscation, smears, inaction and denial every step of the way. We had a debate in this House following the unprecedented event of a minority community in our country, the British Jewish community, taking to Parliament Square outside this place to say enough is enough when it comes to antisemitism. It was not a demonstration against National Action or Tommy Robinson; it was against the Labour party, a political movement that is supposed to pride itself on the values of equality for all and anti-racism against all.
Yet what has happened in the wake of that unprecedented event in our country and in the wake of the debate in this House that took place just a few weeks later? Mr Speaker, you could not make up the catalogue of  events that has shamed the Labour party since that happened: the countless individual cases, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) has alluded to already, that have been dropped or have not been responded to. In the run-up to Holocaust Memorial Day this year, we learned of members of the Labour party in high-profile positions, a number of them councillors and one a Welsh Assembly Member, who had made antisemitic comments and had as their sanction a “reminder of the rules”. That was somehow a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism. We have heard the audio recording of a member of the Labour party’s highest governing body, the national executive committee, accuse 70 British rabbis of being Trump fanatics rather than addressing their very serious concerns about antisemitism. We had to fight for months to see the international definition of antisemitism with all its examples accepted and adopted by the Labour party, and even with a last-minute attempt to dilute it.
We had the summer of antisemitism, when not a day went by without another story in the British press about antisemitism in the Labour party and about its leader’s connections to the issue. One in particular, which caused gross offence, was the claim that British Jews do not get irony. We were told that the Leader of the Opposition was present, but not involved, at the laying of a wreath for the individuals who orchestrated the Munich attacks and the murder of the Israeli athletes. The commitment to meet a deadline to deal with high-profile cases has been deliberately missed, and the party is withholding details of physical threats to MPs, including myself. Just last week, the leadership of the parliamentary Labour party held members in contempt despite their reasonable request to answer 11 straightforward questions and to respond to serious concerns about antisemitism, which was ignored.
This is a shameful record, let alone from a leadership and a political party that seek the highest office in our land. That is why I have arrived at the sickening conclusion that the Labour party is institutionally antisemitic in its processes, its attitudes and its behaviour. We ignore this at our peril. Colleagues have referred to the figures. We have seen a 16% rise in the number of incidents since 2017, and behind every one of those incidents is a person who has been affected.

Matthew Offord: It is hard to follow the speech by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger). I pay tribute to her for the actions that she has taken in the past couple of days, as well as for all she has done since first being elected in 2010. It takes a huge amount of courage to do what she has done.
I have a large Jewish community in my constituency, and the work of the Community Security Trust is particularly important there. In fact, I called for this debate after the release of the CST’s figures. I pay tribute to the trust for the work that it does and for its selfless action in looking after the community. I was pleased that my first parliamentary question here asked for money to pay for the trust to look after schoolchildren at their schools. My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) agreed with me at the time that he did not see why parents should have to pay to keep their children safe just because they were going to school. We continue to fund that work.
Several hon. Members have mentioned the fact that there have been 1,652 antisemitic incidents in the past year, but that is not the whole story. A further 630 potential incidents were reported, but they were not included by the CST because there was no evidence of antisemitic motivation, targeting or content. However, many of the people who suffered those incidents were from the Jewish faith. Previously, we have seen spikes in the number of incidents following military action in Israel or conflict in Gaza or even the west bank, but that has not occurred in the past year. There have been some border skirmishes in which people have been killed, but two particular periods stand out in which there have been spikes in antisemitic incidents.
The first period when the CST recorded an additional number of incidents came during April and May last year, which coincided with the Leader of the Opposition’s past support for a mural in Tower Hamlet coming to light. The so-called graffiti artist Mear One, whom many of us will remember, produced a mural showing people who very much looked like elderly Jewish men sitting around a table supported on the backs of, presumably, African-Caribbean slaves. Many comments were made at the time, which coincided with an increased number of incidents. The second period came in August and September last year, when there was much discussion in the media about whether the Labour party would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance  definition of antisemitism, and the number of antisemitic incidents increased to 150 in those months. I certainly did not want this debate to be about criticising the Labour party per se, but I want Labour to know that when people make comments, there is an effect beyond the coverage in the newspapers.

Matthew Offord: I do not believe that that intervention was aimed directly at me, but I will say that I have for some time been asked in hustings and during elections, “Is the Labour party antisemitic?” and I have never really engaged in that debate. The simple reason why I could not do that is because the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) is certainly not antisemitic and was very much part of the Labour party. I have therefore always resisted saying that the Labour party is antisemitic, and I have resisted saying that the Leader of the Opposition is antisemitic. I will let others make their minds up about that.
In a very good book by Anthony Julius called “Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England” that I found in the Library, the author suggests that there have been four periods in history when Jews have been prominent and have received antisemitic abuse, and I think that we are now in a fifth. The antisemitism of recent years has taken the form of criticism of Zionism and of the actions and policies of the Government of Israel, which has often manifested itself in direct action, such as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. However, the new line of attack is different from traditional antisemitism, meaning the hatred of Jews, claims that Jews are inferior to others or a belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy or the Jewish control of capitalism. The new antisemitism differs in the political voices from which it comes. Previously antisemitism was perceived as coming from the political right, but the new antisemites are primarily on the left and, indeed, the far left.
I have a concern about how such views are communicated to the public through social media. The Antisemitism Policy Trust and the CST found that when Google removed “Are Jews evil?” from its autocomplete function in December 2016, 10% fewer people searched for “Are Jews evil?” than in the previous year. Search companies should stop directing people to antisemitic content on the internet, and we must better equip users and remove content when it is uploaded.
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and I went to Dublin with the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism to visit Facebook and Twitter. I am sure that he will remember that when we spoke to Facebook, its reaction to any kind of racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic comment was, “We must remove it as soon as possible.” However, when we spoke to Twitter, it likened any such posts to comments made in the street to someone as they pass by. We felt that was certainly not an appropriate response. I would like to see the Government and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport consider legislation to prevent such comments from being allowed to remain online.
I am particularly disappointed by two comments that many of us will have seen online yesterday. The first was in response to the right hon. Member for Enfield North when she moved to her current position as an independent Member. Young Labour tweeted:
“Joan Ryan Gone—Palestine Lives”.
As though she had any effect on either Palestine, the west bank, Gaza or Israel.
The second comment, and I do not think it necessary to name the Member, was about the financial backers of the new Independent Group:
“Support from the State of Israel, which supports both Conservative and Labour ‘Friends of Israel’, of which Luciana was chair, is possible and I would not condemn those who suggest it”.
Well, I certainly would. I cannot speak for Labour Friends of Israel, but I am sure it is the same as Conservative Friends of Israel, which does not receive any money from the Israeli Government—it receives its finances from within this country, as per the law.
I ask the Labour Front Bench to do more, and not only about the members I have mentioned today and the comments they have made online; they also need to actively seek out those who are causing a terrible and emotional time for so many of my residents.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree has shown us today what antisemitism feels like, but many of my constituents show me on an almost daily basis how it affects them. One comment, on which I will end, came from a gentleman today and, like me, he is very concerned about the removal of a passport from a British person, “If Mr Corbyn was to be elected, he would know that I have the right of return to Israel, and no doubt I would have my passport taken away.” I do not believe that, and I certainly hope this country never ends up behaving in such a way, but we cannot go on like this. We cannot allow people to behave in the way they have, and we must stop it before people leave this country.

Ivan Lewis: This debate comes at a time of unprecedented anxiety among the Jewish community in this country. A significant majority increasingly worry about their safety and security here, and they question whether their children and grandchildren have a future in the country they love. Yes, this is partially the result of a record number of antisemitic incidents, as reported by the Community Security Trust, and it is also because of the eternal threat from the far right and fundamentalist terrorism, which means that Jewish schools require permanent security guards and security fences, but it is mainly provoked by the fear that the Leader of the Opposition could become Prime Minister of this country.
That is distressing for the community, but it is heart- breaking for those of us whose lives and life chances have been shaped by both our Jewish and Labour identities. How the Labour party, a party that has always had anti-racism as a core value, has got itself into this position is both tragic and extraordinary, and I will devote my contribution to that today.
The current leadership have enabled it by associating for decades with people whose hatred for capitalism has included false assertions about the alleged malign influence of powerful Jews. The problem is not only their association with such people but their refusal to condemn them and  call out their antisemitism. People who were previously involved on the fringes of mainstream politics are now members of the Labour party.
Then there is the leadership’s long-standing support for the hard left’s demonisation of Zionism and its global strategy to equate Zionism with racism and to bastardise the word “Zionism.” In the hard left’s world view, the west is the problem, especially the US, and Israel is a proxy of the US in the middle east, where it does not belong.
In reality, Zionism is the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their own state. It is not expansionism, aggression or the policy of any particular Israeli Government. Many Zionists, including me, oppose settlement expansion and hope that, at some stage in the future, there will be leaders on all sides with the authority and credibility to create the conditions for a two-state solution.
The problem is that the current Labour leadership have always believed that the creation of Israel was a catastrophe and, whatever their protestations, favour a one-state solution—Palestine, not Israel. This is in stark contrast to their campaigning for the rights of minorities around the world to self-determination. So in their world view, Jews are the only minority who do not have that right to self-determination. Israel is singled out and demonised when human rights abuses and lack of democracy in many other countries are on a much greater scale, including countries deified by the hard left. Jewish people are held responsible individually and collectively for alleged actions of the Israeli Government.
After a summer when the Labour party was engulfed in a perfect storm as a result of its refusal to accept the internationally agreed definition of antisemitism, what was the reaction of the party leader? It was to go to a meeting of the party’s national executive with his own proposed amendment that people should have the right to say that the creation and existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavour. In other words, based on this definition, the leader of the Labour party supports people’s right to be antisemitic. This is extraordinary. Then, we must consider the long-term support for terrorist organisations who kill and incite the murder of Jews—Hamas and Hezbollah. Of course, there is a perfectly respectable argument to be made for talking to terrorist groups in order to persuade them to end violence and become part of political and peace processes, but with neither Hamas nor Hezbollah, or the IRA, was this the objective of the Leader of the Opposition. His interactions were clearly to show solidarity with their cause and hence legitimise their use of violence in pursuit of their goals. That is the hard truth. Because of this, how can Labour, under his leadership, tackle the “cancer” of antisemitism when many of the accusations refer to people who articulate views he shares and their loyalty to the leader takes precedence over the party’s anti-racist values?
Why should this matter to the vast majority of UK Jews? It is quite simply because Israel is our best, and perhaps only, safe haven against the persecution Jews have suffered in every generation through history, most recently, with the pogroms of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the horrors of the holocaust only 80 years ago. Jews’ fear of persecution is based on historical and contemporary facts, not irrationality or paranoia. Even in civilised France, we have seen tens of  thousands of Jews leave our neighbouring European Union country in the past 20 years because of their direct experiences of antisemitism.
I salute my former colleagues who have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community. But it has made me sick to the stomach to observe the silence of some in the party and, in other cases, the denial of the problem or attempts to smear those who have spoken out. The abuse and threats meted out to my courageous hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) have disgusted most decent people. Instead of empathy and support, the response of the hard left was to call a vote of no confidence in her—and they call themselves socialists! Quite simply, if all of this has happened in the party, imagine what would happen in our country if the right hon. Gentleman ever became Prime Minister. That is why UK Jews are afraid, and why I urge my friends and former colleagues to examine their consciences and act to put an end to this shameful chapter in the Labour party’s history. Antisemitism is not some second-class form of racism. A party rooted in the values of equality and anti-discrimination cannot collude with racism as a price worth paying for chasing an election victory.

Fiona Bruce: I am sure that I represent all Members of this House in saying that the Jewish community is and has been a real blessing to our nation throughout its history; both inside and outside this House, Jewish individuals have contributed in extraordinary ways to the culture and prosperity we all share. We should take this opportunity to honour and thank their community for the contribution they make to our common good. In recognising and celebrating the Jewish community, we should condemn unequivocally all antisemitic behaviour suffered by our Jewish brothers and sisters. One antisemite is one too many, and there is much work to be done to tackle this.
Today, I wish to focus on the responses to the problem. An effect response will flow partly from the following two principles. First, we must do all we can through education to understand and accept our differences, and in this context our religious differences in particular. Although respect for freedom of religion and belief should not give special privileges to the religious, it should allow believers like our Jewish brothers and sisters the maximum possible freedom to live out and profess publicly who they are and what they believe. Secondly, we must re-emphasise the things that bind us all together, whatever our background or beliefs, and first and foremost that means our innate value as individual human beings—our shared humanity.
Before I touch on those principles in a little more detail, let me just say that true tolerance cannot just be of religions or practices with which we agree; it must also be of those who may be quite different from ourselves. Neither is true tolerance best fostered by state-established measures of what is good for all; rather, it is fostered by enabling those who are different to exist  freely and together with those differences. One way to promote that is to facilitate better religious education in schools.
As chair of the all-party group on religious education, I am aware of the number of highly dedicated RE teachers throughout the country, yet as our report “Improving Religious Literacy: A Contribution to the Debate” highlighted, over recent years RE has not been given the priority or resources that it should have had in many schools. I am pleased that Education Ministers are now seeking to address this, because for many children today RE serves as the main or sole space in which they encounter and discuss different religious beliefs, values and meaning.
Poor-quality RE can have a lasting detrimental effect on the extent of children’s ability to understand and engage with those of different faiths. In turn, that can affect their ability throughout life to engage intelligently and positively in an increasingly diverse society. A submission to the all-party group from the University of Chester department of theology and religious studies said:
“Religious literacy enables willingness and ability to live with religious and cultural tensions and with conflicting beliefs and practices. It supports social cohesion by providing spaces where different views can be aired, listened to and engaged with without the pressure to conform to an overall perspective.”

Louise Ellman: This is a traumatic time. In the past three days, eight highly respected hon. Members have left the Labour party, citing the Labour party’s antisemitism as the key reason. The antisemitic abuse that I receive includes claims that I do not have human blood, that I am a racist supporter of child abuse, that I am a Zio, a Zionist shill and the Jewish Labour Movement’s bitch, that I accept the Israeli shilling, that I am prepared to sacrifice the Labour party in support of a foreign power, and much more.
That could never have taken place in the Labour party that I joined, but today’s Labour party is dominated by a hard-left faction that too easily embraces centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories couched in left-wing terminology. It struggles to recognise that it has a problem. Perhaps it is the problem. That is why the party finds it so difficult to deal with the deluge of anti-Semitism it has unleashed. If the term “Jew” is replaced by “Zionist”, today’s Labour party is perfectly at ease with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. Even as the eight hon. Members left, they were accused of being manipulated and funded by Israel.
Why is Jackie Walker, who repeats Louis Farrakhan’s racist lies that Jews were the main financiers of the slave trade, still in the Labour party? How could Kayla Bibby be let off scot-free after downloading an antisemitic image from the website Incogman that presents Jews as
“Parasites responsible for financial heists of entire nations”
and that is headed “Bloodsucking Alien Parasites Killing America”, the alien parasites being the Jews?
This is an abject failure of leadership for a party that aspires to government. No amount of reassurances from spokespeople can make matters right. In fact, they are insulting. Who do they think they are kidding? It is only action in drumming out the antisemites in the Labour party that counts, and there is little sign of that happening—unless, of course, the party becomes embarrassed by the public exposure of its failings. This is not just a problem for the Jewish community. It is about the nature of our society and the soul of the Labour party. Labour prides itself on being an anti-racist party, but a party that struggles to combat anti-Jewish hatred is complicit in racism. That is the reality.
Why am I still in the Labour party? I am not used to giving up. I still believe in the values that brought me into the Labour party 56 years ago—anti-racism, the struggle for equality, seeking the means to create a better society. I am still fighting, and I will not be hounded out. Indeed, I suspect that the leadership would be delighted to see all its opponents go.
I am encouraged by the support of the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs—Jewish and non-Jewish—and many members, including those in Liverpool. I am still battling for the soul of the Labour party as, with my Jewish and non-Jewish colleagues, I oppose antisemitism wherever it raises its ugly head.

Maria Caulfield: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman).
One of the most poignant sayings is that history has a habit of repeating itself. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) put it in excellent terms this afternoon—that history tells us where all this will lead. Whether it was in the holocaust, or whether it was other genocides that followed, in which people of different faiths and from different communities have been tortured and murdered, whether it was in Rwanda, whether it was the Rohingya, the Yazidis, or in Srebrenica—all followed a similar pattern before genocide and holocaust took place. The warning signs are there long before the action happens.
Antisemitism was clearly evident long before the holocaust in which 6 million Jews were executed. Looking at the parallels between then and now, there are some disturbing similarities. Only a few weeks ago, as the Secretary of State said, many of us were signing the book of remembrance for Holocaust Memorial Day, promising that we would speak out if we saw those patterns of behaviour emerging in our society. That is part of the purpose of today’s debate. It is important not to sit silently by, not calling such behaviour out.
At the time in 1933 when Hitler took over as Chancellor, few saw that the creeping antisemitism would lead to the murder of 6 million Jews. Look at the building blocks that were put in place to get to that stage. A man got into power—a man that, in 1919 when he joined the German Workers’ party, many thought a political lightweight that would never lead the party. But he got into power, promising the masses, in the time of austerity following the first world war, that he would end austerity.  He denounced international capitalism; he said he would install a new order to dismantle the broken politics of that generation. He promised increased public spending to build more hospitals, schools, roads. He would curb big business and end capitalism. He had sidelined traditional trade unions and established his own new group, the Labour Front. He set up a youth wing to indoctrinate the next generation so it would follow his values and beliefs. They were often found chanting at popular events such as the Olympics.
He changed the rules in his own party, so that people could not challenge him and get rid of him. He got rid of the moderates in his own party, using the Enabling Act, so that no one could speak out, and if they were afraid, they were gone in an instant. He ended the freedom of the press, and it was after he got into power that the antisemitism was really ramped up. Anyone looking at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website should listen to the testimony of someone like Hedi Pope, whose parents lived through that. She said they were Jewish, but they dismissed some of the changes; they thought they would never last—he would be gone in a few years, and things would return to normal. But they never did.
After 1933, the Jews were dismissed from the civil service. People were told to boycott Jewish goods. They could not attend schools. They could not go to public areas, such as cinemas. There was the physical destruction that we have heard so much about this afternoon—of synagogues, Jewish homes, places of business. In 1938, Jews started to leave, but for many of them it was too late.
At Prime Minister’s Question Time this afternoon, I spoke about Anne Meadows, a councillor—a Labour councillor—since 1994. I know Anne because I was a Conservative councillor with her in the ward of Moulsecoomb and Bevendean—I was the first Conservative councillor there for 20 years. Anne is a fierce, patriotic Labour woman. You did not mess with Anne. I found that to my cost when I was a fellow councillor. To see a woman like that having to leave the Labour party because of antisemitism against her husband is absolutely shocking. What did her local Labour MP tweet today? That this was nothing more than a bare-faced career move by Anne. There was no sympathy for the plight of Anne and her husband. That tells us where we are today. If we think that antisemitism is something that happened in the past and could never escalate to the same levels, we are fooling ourselves and denying what has happened. There is antisemitism today, and as we remember the lives that were lost in the holocaust and previous genocides we are confronted with a question—what would we have done? Would we have prevented what happened then? Will we have a chance now, because history tells us that if we do not take it we know where this will end?

Ruth Smeeth: I beg the indulgence of the House. I have never stood before to make a speech in the House without notes and without something explicit to say. I never thought that I would do so on an issue so important to me, because I would be so emotional about it. I beg the indulgence of the House for the next six minutes.
A year ago, I stood in this House and read out some of my greatest hits. I got huge solidarity, and lots of people, both within the Labour party and outside, stood with me and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) as we continued our fight—a fight I never thought I would have to have inside my own party, and I promise one that I never wanted. As much as I would love—not love; happily—share the ongoing abuse that has happened over the past 12 months, I say with respect to everybody in the Chamber that it simply is not about us. It is about the chilling effect that this is having on people outside. It is about the young women who should be joining the Labour party who no longer have a political home. It is about those young women and young men who have decided that their identity stops them getting politically involved. It is for them that we continue this fight. It is for them that I stay on my Benches, inside my party. It is for them that I will fight every single day to ensure that antisemitism is removed from my party.
I say to the leadership of my party that one antisemite is too many. It should not be the case that I or my colleagues have to mention the names of antisemites either in this Room—in this wonderful Chamber—or to the parliamentary Labour party for someone to be thrown out. I would like to report to the House that Derek Hatton has been suspended from the Labour party. It took a complaint by my friend the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), and for that to be mentioned in the House.
I am sick and tired, and my heart is breaking a little more every day, because of what I have to experience and what I have to read. I am devastated that my closest political sister in this House has been hounded out of my party, but I have a message for everybody. I will not be silenced. I am going nowhere, and they will have to take my membership card away from me, because this is too important—not for me, not for you, but for the people we represent outside.
I want to say thank you to everybody who has supported us. I want to say thank you to the CST, which has kept me safe. I want to say thank you to the police, who have kept me safe, and I want to say thank you to the Government, who have been there when my own party has not, which is shameful. But this fight continues, and it continues on behalf of all of us. Everybody should grant the CST more money, and they should support and join the APPG. Now is the time not only for words, not only for things in the Chamber, but for action, because we so desperately need it.

Stephen Kerr: That was a most extraordinary speech and I compliment the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) for delivering it in the way she did.
I almost feel that little more needs to be said, but when I was first elected as Member of Parliament for Stirling I made a commitment to myself that I would stand up in this place, and in all other places, to defend  any persecuted minority and to speak up against hatred in all its grizzly, ugly forms. That is why I want to take a few minutes of the House’s time to make it clear that I stand with my Jewish friends and neighbours against the racist vileness that is antisemitism.
Where are we going as a society when a person’s ethnicity or religion is used to demean them and their right to freedom of speech? I have never felt the need to apologise for or hide my religious convictions or affiliations, and no one in this country should ever have to do so. No one should ever have to suffer being the subject of public pillory because of their origins or their religious affiliation. Freedom of religion or belief is a foundational human right.
Based on my limited experience as a Member of this House, I cannot imagine the bullying, abuse and mockery that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and others have had to endure and are enduring. The grotesque treatment to which she and other hon. Members have been subject is deplorable and must be condemned, not least by the leadership of the Labour party.
I am deeply concerned about the rise of this hate, here and around the world. Jew hate seems to me to be a significant element in the overall increase of intolerance and hatred of all kinds. There is a coarsening of public discourse in the way in which intolerance and bigotry are being normalised, not least because of the prevalence of the abuse of social media platforms.
There is so much to be critical of in this world when it comes to injustice, whether it is the treatment of religious minorities in Saudi Arabia, the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, or the official Chinese persecution and imprisonment of more than 1 million Muslims. There is no small amount of injustice in this world, but it is telling that far more energy and importance is attached to divestment and boycott campaigns against Israel than against any other country. That was demonstrated last month, when Malaysia banned Israelis from participating in the world Para swimming championships. We have also heard calls for the boycott of Eurovision when it takes place in Israel, but protests against awarding the World cup to Qatar or against holding the Olympic games in China are muted at best.
In the minute I have left, let me say that this instinct of hatred, which some on the left and the right wish to bring to the surface of our natures, can only be truly defeated by love. Tolerance is not enough. Tolerance implies that we may dislike something but we will politely keep our mouths shut and grudgingly allow people to behave in a way that is destructive to our way of life. It is only when we truly see the common humanity that we share, free of the strictures of difference, that we will become free of intolerance and hatred. It is for that reason that I have made freedom of religion or belief one of the issues that I will continue to speak about in this Chamber. These hatreds—racism, religious persecution and intolerance—make us all slightly less human and diminish us all wherever they are. I cannot think of a more important subject to speak out on.

Clive Lewis: For me, this debate is personal. I am not Jewish, but as a black man I know what it feels like to experience racism of both the individual and the institutional kind. I understand how a racist insinuation is not just offensive, but isolating, making you suddenly feel vulnerable and excluded. I know how the repetition of a well-worn stereotype or  trope, followed by the inevitable denial that it is racist, can be undermining and exhausting. I know, because I have seen it and felt it, as well as read about it, that hostility to Jewish people and age-old antisemitic stereotypes, are becoming more common.
Many people speaking in this debate will have experienced antisemitism at first hand, as we have already heard in some of the distressing testimonies today. As has been stated, it is clear that most of the well-documented rise in antisemitic incidents here and in many other parts of Europe is driven by the alt-right, the far right and the fascist right. They are emboldened by the xenophobic rhetoric of our age to form a sickening new far-right internationalism, with sometimes devastating consequences for all racial minorities.
Did I believe that in 2019 I would wake up to the news that “No blacks” signs had been daubed on the front door of the home of a 10-year-old boy who had just started a new school, or that Islam would be seen as a threat to the British way of life by one third of people in the UK, according to a poll commissioned by the anti-fascist group, HOPE not hate?
I know that racism can take different forms and all of us can hold unconscious biases. In a frank self-admission, George Orwell, writing in 1945, suggested that the starting point for any investigation of antisemitism should be not just condemning others but looking inside ourselves. This is good advice, even today, that I know some people in my party seem to find quite difficult to follow. The fact that the left is opposed to racism in principle does not mean that it is immune to being, consciously or unconsciously, racist or antisemitic in practice. It can be all the more difficult for us to face up to this fact given the extent of unacknowledged racism in other parties, which goes deep.
In the 1930s, assertions of hidden power and wealth were routinely hurled at hundreds of thousands of poor Jewish immigrants living in the slums of London and Manchester. Today, similar projections, conscious or otherwise, can be heard in the repeated association of Jewish people with shadowy conspiracies, often associated with Israel—especially when complaints of antisemitism are made, even when the evidence of it is before our eyes. And it is before our eyes.
The same HOPE not hate report affirms the seriousness of modern antisemitism, online and off, including the very real problem of left-wing antisemitism. Sometimes I hear it said that antisemitism should not be focused on at all in modern Britain as that takes space away from highlighting racism against other groups—as though there is a finite space for this discussion that cannot expand. That can unwittingly reproduce a stereotype of Jews as somehow powerful and privileged even when they are calling out the racism that they experience.
As a black man who has experienced racism all my life, I see the situation very differently: to my mind, closing our eyes to racism against one group only emboldens racism against us all. The only way to combat racism is to show no tolerance to any of it, ever. In that spirit, a few of us have recently formed the new Black, Asian and Jewish Alliance, which we call BAJA. Through our existence, we aim to highlight diversity within our groups as well as between us. Based on the principle of mutual solidarity, we recognise that what  we hold in common is considerable, but we also try to listen and learn from each other about our distinctive experiences.
Above all, we know that racism can be defeated only if we stay united and refuse to be divided by any of the current tensions that swirl around us. As we look around the world today, with the rise of the hard right in the form of Trump, Bolsonaro, Salvini and too many others, we know that tackling the scourge of growing antisemitism, wherever it is found, has rarely been so urgent.

Jim McMahon: This has been a difficult debate to listen to, and it is one we have repeated. This is not the first time that we have had this debate but it is important that we have done so, and I hope that if we have such a debate in a year’s time, we are reflecting on a year of progress, particularly in my party. I take no pleasure at all in—in fact, I am very hurt by—the experiences of people in my party and what they have to go through on a regular basis.
I pay tribute to a number of people who have spoken today. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) talked about her family history and told us some very human stories. When someone looks at their family tree and goes into the stories of  people from many generations ago, those stories are not distant or abstract. They form part of a person’s identity and who they are. When someone reads stories that are so harrowing, it affects them as a person. I know that from my own family, although it is nowhere near comparable with the type of loss and suffering of members of the Jewish community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) spoke about how people’s motives are being questioned. If legitimate views that a member of the Jewish community might have are posted online or are stated in the press, they are questioned on a range of motives. People ask, “Why is that being done? In whose name is it being done? Who are you really working for?”, and I just find that sickening. I think that the questioning of motive that has infected our political debate is fundamentally damaging for democracy.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for his outstanding work on the all-party parliamentary group—he has shown real leadership. He told a very personal story about the impact antisemitism had had on his family. We choose to come into politics—we stand for office and we know what comes with that—but we are all hugely protective of our families, their privacy and their right to be normal, non-political people and to live their lives, and when they become the target of abuse in the way he explained, it hurts all of us who believe in common decency and fairness.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Frith) talked about—celebrated, if you like—his life and how special it was. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) said that about 100 members of her family had been affected by the holocaust. I want to mention her in particular. Until a couple of days ago, she was a fellow co-operator in Parliament—one of our finest—and in case any members of the Labour party are celebrating the loss of someone like her from our movement, allow me to say this: we are much, much poorer for not having her part of it, and I am so sorry for what she has had to go through.
I believe in the Labour party. We do not have a right to exist, but I think we have a purpose to exist. There is a reason the Labour party was born, and that need is still very much here, but, as has been explained today in very human terms, we have a lot of soul searching to do—who are we and what are our values? I take responsibility, as does every fair-minded member of the parliamentary Labour party, for trying to address that. That is why I am at the Dispatch Box today—not to apologise for a system that is not fit for purpose or right, or for a party where people feel marginalised and as if they ought not to be a member, but because I believe we must all work together in solidarity to make it the party we want it to be.
We have a lot of work to do, not just to improve processes, not just to say it, but to live and breathe it, and we can only do that through our actions. It is important that the backlog of complaints be dealt with, and additional capacity has been put in, but Members are rightly questioning whether some of the judgments made were the right judgments, given that we ought to be taking a zero-tolerance approach. I apologise to other Members for focusing on the Labour party, but it has been a large part of the debate so it is right that I do.
There is an iconic poster from 1945 that reads: “Now let’s win the peace”. I reflect on that quite a lot. Many members of my family served in the armed forces, and it matters to me that every generation coming into this place should take on that responsibility. Every day, when I look at the news, when I go on social media, when I see what happens in my own community, I feel we are far from winning the peace. I take a generational responsibility in doing what I can do to win the peace, but at the moment I would say we are falling backwards. When I look at the rise of racism, at how people are being marginalised, at the tone of political debate and how polarised it has become, it does not seem to me that peace is valued or that we understand the sacrifice people made to give us the type of society we hold dear today.
I pay tribute to the work of the CST, the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Shomrim volunteers, who work to protect, educate and make sure we never forget one of the biggest human tragedies in history. This is no theoretical or abstract debate; rather it goes to the core of who we are as a country and a society. I hope she does not mind, but I will conclude by quoting my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth):
“It is time to be counted in the battle to remove antisemitism from the Labour Party, as it is a battle for the heart and soul of the labour movement.”
I agree with Ruth.

James Brokenshire: With the leave of the House, I would like to conclude this extraordinary debate. It is a difficult debate to summarise, however, because we have had such wide-ranging, heartfelt and painful contributions that have underlined the chilling aspect of antisemitism and how, while this place is a bastion of free speech, actually that free speech is at risk from bullying and intimidation. That was hard to listen to. It gives us a warning that antisemitism is serious. I quoted the statistics in opening the debate, but it does not give us the colour or sense of reality that we were given by so many of the appalling examples that hon. Members underlined in their contributions.
Given the wide-ranging nature of the debate and the passion and honesty with which hon. Members have spoken, it feels slightly invidious to draw attention to specific contributions, but I was struck by the contribution of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth). Standing here at the Dispatch Box, I can see the Jo Cox coat of arms just above the hon. Lady and am struck by that sense of there being more in common than divides us, and yet this afternoon we have highlighted a lot of division.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) highlighted the theme of family history, which was mentioned by a number of colleagues. That history matters to us all. She rightly said that she will not be intimidated—I am going back to the issue of freedom of speech. She made the point, as did the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, that she is not going anywhere, and nor should she. They or any hon. Member should be able to make the points they wish to make in the House as they have done.
The comments of the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) were equally notable. She talked about anger and anguish, which came through in  a number of contributions, probably most notably in the contribution of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann). I pay tribute to him for his courage and bravery, and for the leadership he has shown through his work and the all-party parliamentary group.
That sense of leadership was a theme in the debate. We need to show leadership as the Government, but equally all leaders of political parties need to show it. I deliberately opened by saying that we should not make this a partisan debate, but people outside the Chamber might wish to reflect on the powerful contributions that have been made by so many this afternoon.
Education and learning the lessons of the holocaust was a strong theme. Our holocaust national memorial and learning centre has been widely supported. It matters that it will be here, next to this seat of democracy, because of the warning it provides to all of us. We may take comfort in having a democratic society, but we cannot take it for granted. A number of hon. Members gave that warning this afternoon.
The challenges of the online world were mentioned by a number of colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) also mentioned the education theme. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) spoke of the regret she felt at having to make the speech she made this afternoon. It is a regret that we are here today to debate this again. We have heard the message: we have had so much talking, but it is now about action more than words. We all need to instil that sense of action within us.
I conclude with the words of the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. At a recent sitting of the Home Affairs Committee, he drew a black dot on piece of paper to represent the stain of antisemitism and said:
“The white area represents the situation of Jews in the UK today. It is great to be Jewish in Britain and we are proud to be British. This is a truly wonderful country. But, in that context, we’ve got a problem. It used to be smaller, but it has now got bigger, and it could get bigger and bigger unless we deal with it effectively.”
As long as I am in this role or involved in public life, that is what I will continue to do. It is our responsibility to shrink that black dot. I hope that, by virtue of what we have done today, we will help to turn it into a full-stop.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered antisemitism in modern society.

Luke Hall: I am delighted to have secured this Adjournment debate on the practice of the long-term tethering of horses. Tethering is the practice of attaching horses to a stake in the ground using a collar, or sometimes just a piece of rope around the neck, that is then fastened to a chain. The animal that once defined our great nation is now being left at risk of neglect, cruelty and abuse because of loopholes in the very legislation that was written to protect them. This debate follows the Break the Chain campaign run by the excellent HorseWorld trust, a leading equine rescue charity in the south-west, just next door to my constituency. The Break the Chain campaign aims to amend the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to include restrictions on the tethering of horses.
Traditionally, tethering has been used as a short-term method of keeping horses, but it has transformed into a method of retaining horses without having to purchase land, by using public or private grassland, often by the side of busy roads, for grazing. Because the tethered animal can be moved quickly, it is easy for people to tether a horse on land that does not belong to them and then move the animal before the authorities can identify the landowner or the owner of the animal. This results in it being virtually impossible to monitor the welfare of these animals, leaving around 3,500 horses in a state of potentially compromised welfare with little or no chance of intervention from charities.
There are a number of reasons why there has been such a large public response to the public campaign. In my constituency and the constituencies that surround it in the west of England, there is a big problem with tethering. There have been incidents where horses tethered by the roadside have been visible from the council offices in Yate, but despite this being a clear breach of the Animal Welfare Act, it could not be acted upon because the law does not state explicitly that tethering is a welfare concern. Unfortunately, because these horses are not protected by law, most cases of tethered horses that HorseWorld gets called to do not end well. The horses are simply moved before the Control of Horses Act 2015 can take effect. One incident saw a tethered horse break free near a large shopping centre at Cribbs Causeway in south Gloucestershire, next to a major road. By the time the horse was rescued and able to be seen by a vet, the injuries that it had sustained, most likely from having been hit by a car, meant that it had to be put down.

Luke Hall: That can often be the case. If we are looking to change the legislation, we must ensure that we stamp out tethering and animal welfare abuses regardless of who owns the animal, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight that point.
As I said, such incidents are a regular occurrence. In 2016, a pony was found tethered among fly-tipped rubbish. It was so badly tangled up in a discarded bicycle that it could not even stand. This pony, which had a life-threatening injury, was lost to the authorities after the owner simply moved it and tethered it in another location before they could arrive. Sadly, just before Christmas last year, a member of the public came across a pony that had been tethered in a wooded area. The tether had become tangled around the surrounding trees and, in a desperate effort to break free, the one-year-old pony had strangled himself and lay dead in the mud at the end of his tether. It is therefore clear that the practice desperately requires stricter regulation.
HorseWorld, the charity that started the campaign, was spurred into action by the alarming case of a mare that gave birth to her foal while she was tethered. Unable to protect her foal from the other horses who roamed free in the same field, the mare became seriously distressed. Of course, protection of the young is one of our most basic instincts. Research into tethered horses in Wales, where tethering is rife, showed that 10% of tethered horses had young foals. Those are just a few examples of the horrors associated with long-term tethering but, because tethering is not restricted by law, people can tether horses unchecked beyond the reach of the law, resulting in tethered horses reaching despicable stages of neglect before they can be rescued.
I want to touch on the current regulations and legislation surrounding equine welfare and explain why they are not protecting tethered horses in practice. The Minister may refer to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ code of practice, which acts as a guide to safely tethering horses, but the code is not being adhered to in reality, as demonstrated by an investigation conducted in south Wales in 2014 by the excellent University of Bristol’s veterinary school, which gave five main conclusions.
First, the code of practice states that water should be made available on a regular basis in a spill-proof container, but the research concluded that up to 90% of animals were not given water regularly. Secondly, the code states that animals should, as a minimum, have shelter from the sun and wind and that the area should be well drained in the event of heavy rain, but the research tells us that no shelter was provided in over 80% of cases.  Thirdly, animals should be given the freedom to exercise off the tether for a reasonable period at least once a day. In reality, however, less than 3% of horses spent more than five minutes a day off the tether, and no one would argue that five minutes is a reasonable amount of time. Fourthly, according to the code of practice, the tethering site should not contain anything that might injure the animal, but the reality is that sites contained potential hazards in 50% of cases. Fifthly, the code states that tethered horses require a high level of supervision, with inspections
“no less frequently than every 6 hours”.
However, it was found that only a third of horses were visited that regularly. While we have a code of practice, it is clearly not being adhered to, and the fact that an individual can move an animal before they ever reach the stage of being prosecuted renders the code of practice redundant.

Luke Hall: I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. We are seeing horses being tethered all across the country, potentially leaving them open to neglect, cruelty and abuse, and potentially posing a danger to the people around them, too.
Tethering is not deemed enough of a breach of the Animal Welfare Act to allow horse charities to intervene. A tethered horse also does not have the freedom to interact with its own species, as the Act says it should. Leaving horses isolated has been shown to increase stress levels and stress-related hormones, which can cause them to display stereotypical behaviours that cause physical and psychological harm.
Stereotypical behaviours are strongly linked to isolated horses; stabled horses tend to perform behaviours that engage with the stable around them, such as crib biting or weaving. Horses that are tethered long term have a total lack of environmental stimuli, so they are much more likely to develop stereotypical behaviours such as pacing or self-mutilation. This clearly raises questions about the clarity of the existing legislation and regulations on the grounds for removing a horse from a tether and on the capacity of law enforcers to act.
Long-term tethering is in direct conflict with legislation, yet in many instances authorities have not felt that the Animal Welfare Act is strong enough grounds to rescue horses, despite the obvious suffering. It is therefore my belief, and the belief of the charity that initiated this campaign, that the Act needs to be amended to state explicitly what constitutes inappropriate tethering.
One of the reasons why this is such an emotive subject is the location of tethered horses. As I said earlier, the main purpose of long-term tethering is free grazing, so horses end up on any strip of grass available, with the roadside, grass verges and even the middle of roundabouts, as we have seen in south Gloucestershire, being popular choices. It goes without saying that this is not remotely appropriate. Horses are easily spooked by traffic, and if the tether were to fail, there would be a loose horse on the road.
Advances in equine and animal science mean that we are much more able to understand what constitutes poor welfare, but our laws have not caught up with that deeper understanding. When I met HorseWorld staff, who are so passionate about what they do, I was told about a pregnant mare that escaped her tether and got on to a busy A road, where she narrowly avoided being hit by a lorry. Police had to attend the scene to monitor the horse until HorseWorld could assemble a team at 3 am. If the tethering laws were stricter, the lives of the mare and her unborn foal would not have been risked, a lorry driver would not have had to make an emergency stop on a main road and numerous hours of police time would not have been wasted.
That leads me on to my second point, which has been raised by other equine welfare charities in a number of reports: only appointed animal welfare officers or police constables have the authority to seize an animal. However, councils are in no way mandated to employ an animal welfare officer, so many choose not to do so. Our understanding is that as many as 40% of councils do not employ an animal welfare officer. In these areas, the police are the only organisation that has the power to rescue an animal from a situation where its welfare is compromised. I therefore ask the Minister to update us on what steps he is taking to gain a deeper understanding of the depth of the problem. The result of this situation is that police time is being spent attending horse rescues, which often just involves hours spent holding a horse at the side of the road when it had got on to the road. Only a police constable, once contacted, can authorise a  charity to remove a horse. It is clear from written parliamentary questions I have tabled that the Government have no idea about the amount of police time that is spent dealing with these incidents. Clearly, police time can be better spent in the community. Having clarity over who should be dealing with equine welfare complaints will reduce the time that it takes to deal with them and will save the lives of animals. The councils that do employ animal welfare officers need to ensure that they are trained to handle horses. That could easily be achieved by collaborating with voluntary organisations.
Let me now address what needs to change. In the past, DEFRA Ministers have said that the current legislation appropriately meets the needs of tethered horses. The 19,000 people who signed a petition to get the tethered horses rescued from Rovers Way in Cardiff would disagree. The 12,000 people who have emailed their MPs about getting tethering laws tightened would disagree. I also think that all the experts who have been in touch with me and the voluntary organisations calling for stricter laws on tethering would also disagree.
There are therefore four changes that I would like to see incorporated into the 2006 Act to improve the lives of horses. The first is that there should be a 24-hour legal limit on how long horses can be tethered for. That is important, because DEFRA’s code of practice states that long-term tethering is inappropriate. That needs to be clarified, backed up and given status in law. The second is that there needs to be a complete ban on tethering horses on the roadside or in dangerous locations. The third is that if a tether is someone’s only method of keeping an animal, they should not be allowed to keep that animal. The fourth is to make it a mandatory duty for local councils to employ an animal welfare officer or to ensure that arrangements are in place with neighbouring authorities to ensure that those officers are in place.
There is currently too much room for interpretation within the legislation. It needs to be clear-cut that long-term tethering infringes on equine welfare, leaving horses at risk of harm and suffering. We need to give the relevant authorities the means and confidence to rescue horses that desperately need protection. We need to step up and take action to protect these most majestic and iconic animals. Making these changes will protect thousands of horses across our country. Minister, please help us and break the chain.

David Rutley: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) on securing this debate, and I pay tribute to his campaigning activity in this House, on this issue and on many others, and to the hard work he does in the House.
I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the issues relating to horse tethering. I know it is an issue of concern to many, not only because of the important welfare issues involved, but because of the visibility of tethered horses in our countryside and by our roads, and the many challenges that can arise if tethering is not undertaken properly and in line with established guidance and good practice.
As the Minister with responsibility for animal welfare, I am clear that we have to uphold, and continue to drive up, our already high standards of welfare in this country,  including in relation to the tethering of animals, and I applaud my hon. Friend for securing this debate and highlighting the issues that can arise. As he has so clearly set out, some people are not tethering their horses appropriately, and are causing these poor animals distress and suffering. I was horrified to hear of the cases he set out of the suffering that poor tethering practice can cause our much loved horses and other equines. The practices in the examples he gave must be stamped out so that these noble animals can live without the threat of cruelty or a life of misery. I applaud the work that HorseWorld is doing to look after these horses, and I welcome the aims of its effective “Break The Chain” campaign which focuses on ending all inappropriate and long-term tethering of horses, and in particular on seeing a ban on the tethering of equines for longer than 24 hours.
As my hon. Friend clearly pointed out, it is an offence under section 9 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 Act to fail to provide for an animal’s welfare. As he mentioned, that means that a person who cares for an animal—whether it is a pet, a working animal or a farm animal—must provide for its five welfare needs, as set out in the Act. Those needs are: a suitable environment to live in; a healthy diet, including fresh, clean water; the ability to exhibit normal behaviours; appropriate company —for example, some animals need to live in social groups; and protection from pain, suffering, injury and disease. Section 4 of the Act goes even further and makes it an offence to cause a protected animal any unnecessary suffering—commonly known as animal cruelty.

David Rutley: My hon. Friend makes a good point. The aim of the Government’s work in this policy area is to highlight that tethering should be for the short term. We want these animals to be as socialised as possible.
The 2006 Act is backed up by a number of statutory codes of practice, including the code for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids. The code provides owners and keepers with information on how to meet their animals’ welfare needs and includes a specific section on how to tether horses and other animals covered by the code. Although it is not a specific offence to breach a provision of the code, if proceedings are brought against someone, the court will look at whether they complied with the statutory code in deciding whether they have committed an offence. That makes the code a key document in relation to prosecutions for animal welfare offences. We are very grateful for the input and assistance from the British Horse Council and the Horse Trust in particular, and for their advice last year on the changes we made to the code, which was updated in April 2018.
I should clarify that tethering is not a banned activity, as there are circumstances in which tethering may avoid a greater risk of harm arising—for example, if a horse strayed into a place of danger. That point was made by World Horse Welfare in the statement issued this week, which said:
“We are concerned that banning tethering could lead to more horses kept indoors where their welfare cannot be monitored, or left to wander freely, endangering both themselves and the general public.”
Tethering is defined under the code as
“securing an animal by an appropriately attached chain, to a centre point or anchorage, causing it to be confined to a desired area.”
Furthermore, the code states that tethering
“is not a suitable method of long-term management of an animal,”
but
“may be useful as an exceptional short-term method of animal management”.
I think that goes a long way towards addressing the first and third changes that my hon. Friend proposed.
Although tethering is not prevented or illegal under the code, the code does include detailed specific advice on tethering and how it should be done properly. It details which animals are not suitable for tethering and provides advice on a suitable and appropriate site—for example, a site should not allow the horse access to a public highway or public footpaths. That helps to address the second change proposed by my hon. Friend. To tether a horse in such a way that it can physically be on a pavement or road is clearly contrary to the code and therefore open to enforcement action.
In addition to the statutory welfare code, other organisations provide advice on tethering. For example, World Horse Welfare has drawn attention to the code of practice produced by the National Equine Welfare Council specifically on tethering. In addition, the British Horse Society has produced a helpful leaflet that is available online, and provides advice to anyone with concerns. The Redwings equine welfare charity also has useful advice on tethering, as does the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which has also produced guidance on tethering. Our concern today, though, is not with necessary tethering that is undertaken in the short term, in the right way and in exceptional circumstances, in order to avoid a greater risk of harm arising; it is with avoidable and unacceptable tethering.
Under the 2006 Act, local authorities have powers to investigate concerns about the welfare of animals and if necessary to seize them—if they are suffering, for example. They can also prosecute if someone is neglecting an animal in their care. In addition, the way the Act is drafted means that anyone can bring forward a prosecution under the Act, and it is on this basis that the RSPCA prosecutes many hundreds of people each year for animal cruelty or neglect. It is important that we all recognise the important work the RSPCA does in this area.
Those convicted of such crimes under the Act can be subject to an unlimited fine or imprisonment for up to six months. I am pleased to say that the Government have announced that they are increasing the maximum custodial penalty for animal cruelty from six months to five years of imprisonment. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will be very aware that the five-year penalty is already in place in Northern Ireland and we look forward to having it in England, too.
If anyone is concerned about how a horse or other animal has been tethered they should report the matter either to the relevant local authority or to the RSPCA, which can investigate and if necessary take the matter further. If a horse or other animal is found not to be tethered appropriately, that could lead to a prosecution under the 2006 Act.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate mentioned the important role of local authorities in this area and the need for them to appoint animal welfare officers. Local authorities have strong powers to enforce welfare controls and often work in partnership with the RSPCA or other welfare charities, or indeed with other local authorities that have expertise in horse management.
Enforcement can be targeted according to local priorities and needs. In some areas, for example, horse abandonment or poor tethering practice might be an issue. In others it may be non-existent. We encourage all interested parties to work together at local level to use the available powers to address the problem of abandoned or incorrectly tethered horses. Local authorities have powers under the 2006 Act to appoint welfare inspectors, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and I encourage them to do so to meet the needs of residents and equines in their area.

David Rutley: Local authorities often have emergency contact numbers, and the RSPCA can give a 24/7—or at least seven day a week—response. I think my hon. Friend’s concerns are addressed.
I am conscious that, in the short time I have left to speak, it is also important to highlight the Control of Horses Act 2015 is also relevant. It was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) with support from the Government and introduced more flexible options for the management of unlawfully placed or abandoned horses—often known as fly-grazing horses—some of which might be tethered. It has been welcomed by landowners, local authorities, countryside bodies and animal welfare charities.
In summary, the appropriate tethering of horses is an important issue that the Government are taking action to address. We have put a number of protections in the 2006 Act, the code for the welfare of horses and the 2015 Act. The strong arguments made today and the concerns that have been raised mean that I shall call for a meeting with key stakeholders in the months ahead to see what more can be done in sharing and documenting best practice on horse tethering and ensuring that messages on best practice are more actively disseminated to horse owners. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate on these matters in the months ahead and I am sure that that will help us to deliver animal welfare at a continued high standard now and in the years ahead.
Question put and agreed to.
House adjourned.